Brother's Betrayal
by Dave19941000
Summary: Their cousins have lead them astray, and now their brothers have been betrayed. An old enemy has returned and have lead the colonies from their true path. Will the Earth and the Colonies survive the trials before them, or fall like the Ancients before them?
1. Chapter 1

**Pre-story notes: **The story is set in 2015, so about 4 years after the last canonical events in the Stargate setting occurred. Because I'm making this set in the same cannon as another story I'm working on (don't worry, the only effect it'll have is on background statistics and maybe a reference or two) there are some differences in the Earth of that setting. The largest differences are that the SGC and its technologies are known to the general public, though are neither confirmed nor denied in their existence (despite having two BC-304s take part in a public ceremony in the other story). There are still things that are not known to the general public, such as the transporters and the Wraith. The reason for this is slow revelation of things during a major disaster that happened in 2000 in the setting and had large effects that lasted years on Earth. Hard to care about the government keeping the Stargate secret when half the planet died from a single even and its fallout.

The changes which do have an effect on the SGC are the creation of Homeworld Command was the same, but the name is Sentient World Observation and Response Department, but everyone calls it S.W.O.R.D. for short. The fleet is also larger as a benefit of hot building in hiding, as well as the time passing. The fleet's size is 26 BC-304s and the Destiny.

Anyway, if you're still reading at this point, then on with the story.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Adar looked over the file in his hand for a long time. He knew what was in it, but he debated himself weather he wanted to open it. Knowing was one thing, having it show itself to your face, that was another.

With his left hand, he took the glass of brandy he had been using more by the day. Downing the contents in a single shot, he laid the file on his desk and looked over its contents.

Mobilization reports. Fleet deployments. Personal statistics. It was all things he already knew; he just hadn't had them in a single report. The Colonial Expeditionary Force was ready, that's what was important. He quickly flipped it to the last page and signed his name. That was it. In the morning his secretary would take the file and within 3 days the CEF would leave Picon orbit and make way for the first Anchorage on the way. Then they would go to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And then eventually they would reach the last one, and that's when it would happen.

He poured himself another glass.

As he consumed its contents over the next few minutes, he thought about the future. His popularity was higher than ever before, dwarfing that of any president since the charter was signed. The media loved him for giving them all the hot stories they wanted. The military loved him for the blank check he gave them. Industry loved him for the new equipment he had provided them. And the people loved him for all that and more.

He poured himself another glass.

Looking at the drink's container, he thought about what his significant other was doing. Not his wife, that whore was on the other side of the system with the future minister of the interior. No, he was thinking of the minister of education. She had been very mixed on all of this. On the one hand, she had been like all the others in her support of the new technology at their disposal. She had even become the public face of it for a short time, having her breast cancer cured in minutes and with no visible adverse effects.

But she had voiced her concerns as well. Unlike most of the other ministers, the bunch of yes men who went along with anything the council said, she had been against the operation. Not openly, she had to hold the image of the united government after all, but in private she had made her position on the matter clear. It was wrong, it would backfire in the long run, it would make things harder then it needed to be. And he would probably be remembered as the worst president to ever live in a few decades when the fallout was clear.

He knew she was right. He also told himself he didn't care, though his ever emptying bottle begged to differ. This was one of his biggest mistakes, but he knew there was one he would truly be remembered for, the one which outshone them all.

He poured himself another glass.

His bottle now empty, he placed it into his desk next to the others. In better times it had been filled with papers, but he didn't need the space anymore. Not since his biggest mistake had been made.

There was a knock at his door.

"Sir, he's here." One of his security guards told him.

"Let him in." He said. He quickly downed what remained of his brink and set the glass aside.

The man who entered wore a dull, grey suit that reminded Adar of the old religious suits that some Sagittaron religious groups wore. He didn't know why they wore those clothing, but he sure felt that they fit their personality.

"Hello mister president." The man stated.

"Hello Borren." He replied. Showing his the seat, he wondered for what was far from the first time if the man and his people where capable of feeling emotion. If they did, they sure didn't show it.

"Is this an inconvenient time?" Borren asked.

"No, no, it's fine." Adar replied. He honestly didn't feel like dealing with the man who had changed his nation. For all the technological wonders they had brought, the medical treatments, the weapons, he just hadn't been getting enough sleep the past few days for him to want to deal with him. "So what brings you here at this hour?"

"The expeditionary force, I would like a transfer to be allowed." Borren informed him. He handed Adar a piece of paper. "My people would be very grateful if two of our battleships where to be allowed to partake in the operation. They wouldn't need to be supplied by your fleet, so there wouldn't be any logistical impact by their presents in battle."

Adar quickly looked over the paper. Nothing implying that either ship's captain would take command of the operation. But also nothing about who they would follow the orders of.

"The ships would be autonomous in the battle. It is not as if their coordination would be critical. The Tau'ri have but one warship after all." Borren explained to him. Adar shrugged it off. It isn't like the Earthers could have built many more ships in the decade since the Aschen had last contacted them. He quietly signed the paper.

"And is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about? This isn't something that couldn't have been handled during my regular hours."

"There's the matter of the Sagittarons. Many of them continue to block the entry of our medical technology into their world." Borren explained. "It was one thing when they simple stopped using the bureaucratic system; however these latest moves have been quite violent."

"Yes, yes, and we have the perpetrators of the attack in custody and will have them dealt with accordingly." Adar replied.

"I see. However I believe you must understand that we will be withdrawing our offering of the life-extending drug from that world. At least for the foreseeable future."

Adar would be lying if he said it was a surprise. The world was always a thorn in the side of the government, always being against whatever progress the colonies where making either for political or religious reasons, usually both.

"I understand, though I am also disappointed. Despite the actions of some extremists I'm certain that there are a large number of people on that world who would like to use the drug."

"We shall continue to offer it to all who would take it." Borren replied. "We will simply not set up medical centers on that world."

"I see." Their meeting ended in silence. Borren simply left, not even excusing himself, as he always did.

Adar opened his desk and took another bottle out.

He was glad the drug reinforced the liver; though he knew that even if it didn't he wouldn't have cared.

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"Welcome back sir." The Aschen central operations director said, welcoming Borren back. The large space station once known as Ragnar had been a welcome, if not up to their standards, home for the fleet of survivors from the once capital world of the old confederation.

"Thank you Koah." Borren replied to his wife. "They have approved of the request. Our revenge is finally at hand."

"That is good to hear. And what of the backwater world?"

"There was no objection to our pulling out. We will begin phase three of the plan."

One of the technicians turned their head at the comment, but did nothing to draw attention to themselves. Koah and Borren started to walk down to the command center.

"And what should be the concentration?" Koah asked, referring to the sterility drug.

"100%. That world is far too unruly and rebellious."

"Complete sterilization, are you certain?"

"Yes. We can use survivors from Picon and Caprica. There will be a few generations where the three worlds will not produce at their maximum potential, but it will work better in the long term then allowing the colony to continue into the new age. Their world will act as the new capital." As Borren explained his reasoning, the technician followed from a distance, being careful not to bring attention to themselves.

The technician faked attention to their PAD, scrolling threw it idly while occasionally looking up to look where he was going. He just happened to be going in the same direction as the two.

"So the hour is at hand. These Colonials are more naïve then we could have hoped for. With the balance of technology they have I'd almost think a deity had chosen these people to be the base for our new empire."

"Koah, I fear you have been spending too much time with these people to be thinking such as that. We were tremendously lucky, that is all."

"Oh course." Koah replied. As they entered an elevator, a technician moved quickly to get in with them.

"Sorry." The man said. He didn't look up at them as he fiddled with his PAD.

"How are the children coming along on the lower decks?" Borren asked to kill time.

"They are coming along better than expected. Current re-estimates put their maturation at 12% ahead of schedule."

He took a moment to crunch numbers in his head. "That puts us at about 5 years ahead for full repopulation."

The elevator opened, and the three walked out into the station's command center. The large room had a dozen people at computers running the day to day operations of the station. With how effective the automatic systems where, most could go days without needing to even touch their computers. Because of this most where using their own PADs to perform other functions. Why waste all your attention on something that required almost none of it, after all?

But diverting ones attention between different jobs also makes it harder to notice something outside their work happening that shouldn't. In this case it was a technician who ripped open a panel and preformed "routine maintenance". Or at least that's what everyone working there simply assumed, if they took notice at all.

His job was simple, download everything they had. His system wasn't strong enough to hack the communication's array, so he did what he could. He knew it would be only a week for the fleet to reach its destination. That was too soon. The fleet was supposed to leave in a month.

Jonathan O'Neill quietly cursed himself. The weekly checkups had been the day before; it wouldn't be until the day before the invasion that they would learn about the change.

The download finished, he put the panel back together and made his way to the elevator. He took a moment to stop when he was half way there, turning his head. He spied the terminal that displayed a Stargate held down three decks. It was defended by two automatic turrets. But the DHD was right there. If he could get to it….

"What are you doing here?"

Jonathan used all the training he had to not jump as he herd the question. Turning around, he faced the operations director and the head administrator.

"Routine maintenance, ma'am." There was a long silence before Koah replied.

"Not anymore. We need someone to fix the cryobays down below."

"Understood." Without another word, he went to the elevator and signaled for it to take him to the lower decks. With how simple the work was, he wouldn't need to have his full concentration on his task to get it done fast enough to be believable. He would just need to look at his PAD every now and again to not have anyone question why a two hour job would take him two hours instead of one. That would give him enough time to come up with a plan.

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"I don't believe this, they're really pushing up the launch date this much? This soon? What the frak is the brass drinking?" Saul took the orders from Picon as well as could be expected.

"It's to be expected. I don't know how the Aschen do it, but the last ships to come out of Scorpia where done sooner than expected. The fleet's going to be larger than the original plan called for." Adama replied. The two sat in his office as they dissected the latest orders from command.

"Two of their battleships though. How are we supposed to handle having the two most powerful ships on this mission working on their own? We may outnumber and outgun them a hundred to one, but those dame accountants could end up getting in our way. The last thing I want is a blue on blue." Saul took a swing at his glass, only to find it was empty. Adama passed him the bottle.

"And here I thought you hated those people."

"I do, Bill. By gods I do. But you really think they wouldn't take out a few of our ships if that happened?" The two sat in silence for a long moment.

"You know, it's funny. Everyone still thinks of the Aschen as 'them'. Other than 'us'. I wonder if that'll ever change, or if the Earthers will ever not be 'them' either?" Adama thought out loud.

"From what some of the less well-off colonies have to say, I don't think so." Saul replied. The two didn't know what they would do after the operation was done, but one thing was certain, it was quitting time. Neither would have anything to do with the occupation.

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"_And so the brave men and women of the expeditionary force shall set forth and bring about a grand unification of the human race once more. For the first time in thousands of years the children of Kobol shall again be one under the gods."_

As Adar's speech came to an end, Borren almost had a hint of a smile on his face. Almost.

"It's almost entertaining to watch their ignorance." Koah stated as the video cut to a pre-recorded program about the assembled fleet and explaining the sheer size of it. 300 warships, 200 logistical support ships, 200 troop transports. Half a million infantry, just as many sailors.

"Maybe, but we still have not accomplished our mission. We cannot rest until the task at hand is finished." Borren added. He used his PAD to determine how the addition of the sterilizing agent into the Sagittaron water supply was going. So far it showed promise, in two months the needed quantity of the agent would be ready, and within a week of completion it would be within every aquifer the world had. Once that was done it would be only a year before the agent would become inert.

Three decks down, Jonathan did his move. It was this time which had the most possibility for success. The crew was distracted by their main duties in relation to the mission they had. Large amounts of power from the station's core was going towards the communication's array as the small fleet of Aschen ships sent information to each other.

Entering the right deck, he found it abnormally empty even by the standards of the large station.

Opening a panel, he quietly set the system to loop the footage from the room and turned off the alarms. With that done, he walked up to what passed for a control room for the gate. The lone figure was preoccupied with their work and didn't notice his approach. That was their mistake as he quickly snapped their neck.

Now all that stood in his way was the two turrets. The hardest and most risky part of his plan where behind him. The two undefended turrets had a major flaw. They didn't know he was an enemy, and they couldn't turn enough to face him if they had. Disabling them took only the effort to pull out their power cords from the wall.

Standing before the DHD, he was at the part where things would need to move fast. The moment he pressed a single button someone somewhere would realize what was happening. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before someone came down. He had estimated his window would be twenty seconds.

Taking a deep breath, he pressed the first button. By the time he had reached the sixth, he could hear an alarm going off in another section. By the time there was the whoosh, the alarm had stopped, but he knew they were coming. Not wasting a second, he jumped through the gate.

By the time guards had entered, the DHD no longer showed the gate address he's dialed. They could find it, but it would take time, time for him to dial seven other addresses in a galaxy wide dash to get them off his trail.

When he reached the eighth world, he dialed home.

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"So they're coming early." General Landry said with a sigh. "It's bad enough they had a fleet of that size coming our way, now they're only four days away."

"How many ships could we have here in time?" Director O'Neill, who was on a speaker phone, asked.

"Twenty-two. Task Force Hammond will never make it in time."

As the general and the director continued to speak, Jonathan let his mind drift as the two went on about things above his pay grade.

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Over the four short days of transit between the colonies and Earth, the colonials prepared for the plan of attack, or what passed for it when they outnumbered the enemy a hundred to one. For its part, S.W.O.R.D. made every preparation it could with the little time they had. The gathered ships prepared for battle, the stations in orbit prepared for battle, and the few cities which had shields had them tested time and again. The Destiny was moved from Earth orbit to the rings of Saturn to hide its existence. The control chairs in Antarctica on Earth and Atlantis on the moon where activated continually to test the abilities of the systems and make certain they were working at full potential.

On the fourth day, far too soon for those in charge of both sides, the forty-third jump by the CEF occurred, and the skies high above the Earth where filled by hundreds of warships.

Outnumbered eleven to one, the might of the Tau'ri prepared once again to defend its home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Pre-story notes:** I'll admit, I wasn't expecting this story to be nearly as popular as it was. Not much to say so I'll answer a few questions.

**Rennsteig****: **Jack O'neill was in D.C. the whole time, the character who was infiltrating was Jonathan O'neill, the clone of Jack that Loki made. I feel they threw out a huge opportunity with him, at least in later seasons where he wouldn't have been a teen but in his 20s.

**AlbertG and ****EffervescentNova: **your questions will be answered in due time.

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"_Chevron 7, locked."_ As soldiers prepared themselves, Captain Rogers stared in awe at the whoosh. Another world, half way across the galaxy. It was almost incomprehensible to him. It was hard enough for him to understand the things that he had seen since he was awoken, but the alien technology in front of him was leaps and bounds ahead of any of that. _"Captain Rogers, SG14 and members of the Royal 22__nd__, you are clear for the Romeo Site."_

"Très bien les homes, aller aller aller!" The colonel leading the three battalions shouted. Rogers didn't really understand what the Canadian was saying, but he got the gist of it as the men in front of him started to run through the gate. This latest mission was one of the more ambitious, just over three thousand soldiers, all carrying as much equipment and supplies as humanly possible, along with APCs and specially ordered trucks that could travel through the gate, all of them filled to the brim with anything and everything that could be needed to rebuild civilization. To accomplish this, the gate had been moved to the tunnel which allowed entry into the base to allow maximum efficiency in getting personnel off world. This was the largest such evacuation in the past 4 days, but it was far from the only one. Even then there over ten thousand soldiers and civilians outside the base preparing for their turn to leave, with countless more in one level of preparation or transited to arrive at the makeshift tent city which had sprung up outside the base.

A few locals had asked questions, but it was passed off as a military exercise. Some had doubts, but when soldiers and civilians wearing the upside down V with a circle above it where saying no more questions, they had learned over the years that they meant it.

"You sure you can handle that?" Roger's attention turned to the man next to him. Unlike the others in this evac group, he was also a fellow American. This one was one Jonathan O'Neill, head of SG14.

"Yeah, I'm fine." The Captain referred to the four crates he was holding. Each one was made to be held by two men, but he held two with each of his arms, a benefit of his past alterations. He had been against going on the mission at all because of it, but his superiors had made a good case.

The fight would be won in the sky, and a ground pounder, even a national hero like him, would be useless in it. If he was in a position of being needed, they had already lost, so it was better for him to be a part of the off world future should the unimaginable happen.

The soldiers standing in front of him started to move forward. Without thinking, he too started to run. A moment before he entered the event horizon, he took a deep breath. He exhaled on the other side of the galaxy.

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"Sir, detecting large energy distortions five hundred out." One of the operators of the Daedalus informed the bridge.

"Activate the cloak." Jack ordered. In an instant the ship disappeared from sight. "Take us around them and bring us up on the rear, but give us a wide berth."

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"Sir, the fleet has defolded successfully" the Zeus' XO informed admiral Negala.

"State of the system?" The admiral barked.

"We're getting twenty one unknowns. We're also reading several defence platforms in orbit and…" The XO stopped for a moment as he looked at the readings. "A lot of communications satellites."

"How many?" Negala asked.

"That's a good question." His XO stated under his breath.

"Sir, they're launching raiders." The DRADIS operator stated. "Detecting 147. Correction, 144, there seems to be 3 bombers in the mix."

"Send the message." Negala ordered.

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"Sir, they're sending a message on all radio channels."

"Radio?" Jack asked himself quietly. "Alright, put it up."

"_Ihbo hwbsofe hlhajs"_

"Put it threw the translator first." Jack said after only a moment of the recording being played.

"_have come to unite humanity for the first time after thousands of years apart. We will return the thirteenth tribe to our people's unity. You may join us peacefully, or you may resist in futility. We shall not allow those who destroyed the world of our brothers, the lost tribe of a lost tribe, to be permitted to happen again. This is your only warning."_

"Lieutenant, open a channel by relaying us threw the Odyssey." Jack ordered, getting a 'yes sir'.

"Dear people of the Cyrannus system, you are trespassing on the sovereign territory of the nations of Earth, and you are unwelcome here. I'm giving you one chance, so if you value your lives you will take it. If you leave now, that'll be the end of it and we will not go after you. But if you attack us now, we will become more powerful then you could ever imagine. Your Aschen allies won't help be able to save you. And that's another thing, whatever the Aschen have told you is a lie. They're evil, they come to a world with open arms and give you technology and medical treatments, but what they don't tell you is that you become sterilized by them and your world turned into a farm." He signaled for the comm officer to cut the signal.

"You think they'll back down sir?" the first officer of the ship asked.

"We aren't ever that luck." Jack said to himself.

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"The audacity!" The Zeus' XO yelled as the message came to an end. "Launch all vipers and take formation for full assault using formation Sigma-Six."

"Calm down Sen." Negala barked. He didn't belay his order, but he needed to keep the man in line. He hasn't wanted him as his XO for the operation, but his alternative choice had died in a car accident. The man before him was competent, but his temper would be the death of him.

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"Sir, the colonials are launching fighters." Dakara informed his captain. The Aschen man leaned forward as he watched over a hologram of the battlefield before them. Without a word, he simply watched, waiting.

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"How many fighters are we talking about?" Jack asked as he got a good view of the fleet's backside.

"Almost thirteen thousand, sir."

"That's about ninety to one." His XO lamented. Jack did the math in his head. Their F-302s where good, but they were far from that good. They had to even the playing field.

"Get me a line to the Avalons." Jack ordered.

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Inside his cockpit, Captain Jon Haida forced himself to breath easily. He had fought before, he had been to space before, but he had never done both at the same time. He was deathly aware of how little stood between him and death in a vacuum, and after having died only a few months before he did not want to do it again. He probably wouldn't come back.

"_Calm down Cap, I can hear your breathing over the comm."_ His wingman Mana told him over the radio.

"Sorry, I'm just worried."

"_Why? We're only outnumbered a hundred to one." _Marry, his other wingman, added.

"Thanks Marry, that really helped." Jon replied sarcastically.

He looked over his radar again. He couldn't see outside, the experimental Avalon strategic fighter-interceptor having a fully covered cockpit. He could see a digital representation of everything around him in all directions, but he knew from experience that it wasn't the same as seeing it with his own eyes.

His fighter wasn't that odd looking for an atmospheric fighter, but it did for a space based one. Having been designed for both, it resembled a more traditional fighter, only scaled up to about three times the length of a conventional fighter such as the F-35. His fighter was also painted a faint blue to distinguish itself from its green and pink sister craft, or the grey standard mass production models which had yet to see service.

"_Captain Haida, it's time for you to earn your stripes."_ Jack's voice said over the comm.

"Director O'neill, what are your orders sir?" the young captain asked.

"_Alpha Strike is to use starbursts to thin out the enemy's fighter lines with extreme prejudice."_

Jon sighed. "Yes sir."

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"Why are we being held in reserve? I can understand you, but I'm the best pilot in the fleet." Lee rubbed his eyes as Kara asked the same question for the countless time.

"I don't know, and I don't care. It's not as if we'd get any action, I mean look at that." He knew she couldn't see him gesturing to his DRADIS, but he also knew she understood. The two of them where in reserve waiting in the launch tubes, just in case.

"I still think we should be out there."

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"What could they possibly be doing?" Saul asked, looking at the readouts.

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Adama quietly spoke, making sure that only Saul could hear.

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"Sir, we're behind the first Aschen battleship."

"Alright." Jack said, opening a channel with all Earth forces. "Ladies and gentlemen, you know the plan. All of you are standing where you are now because you're the best of the best at what you do. Today is the day we will see if that's good enough. The line must hold, and it will hold. There's no doubt in my mind about that. Good luck, and god help us."

With that, he changed the connection to only be with the three Avalon fighters.

"Begin Operation Last Light."

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There was a long, dead silence. The Earth fleet was divided into three groups, each comprised of seven ships and their fighter complement, each headed by one of the three experimental fighters.

The space in between the two fleets and their respective swarms of fighters was filled by seventy two missiles. The missiles speed was too fast for the colonials to properly react to. The fighters of the CEF tried to avoid them, but nothing could prepare them for what they were about to face.

Each of the missiles opened up, revealing a dozen warheads each that quickly flew forward, deep into the formations of fighters. All at once, they reached their mark and stayed true, lighting the sky in a fiery inferno.

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"What the frak was that!" Saul asked as the DRADIS was blinded by the nuclear reaction. As the readings returned, he noticed a lot less green. "Casualties?" He yelled.

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"Eighty nine percent?" Negala quietly asked himself. The numbers didn't lie. Eighty nine percent loses of fighters. In a moment over eleven thousand fighters had been wiped from existence. He took a moment to think about his course of action, but the loud thump of his XO falling to the ground distracted him.

"Medic!" one of the marines yelled.

"Get our reserves out there." Negala ordered. "All ships launch all Vipers and ahead full. I want us in weapons range yesterday and guns blazing."

"Admiral, one of the Aschen battleships is gone!"

"What?"

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"They're gone sir." Dakara said, in the closest thing an Aschen had to shock. "One of their ships just appeared behind them."

The captain said nothing, but did a simple hand motion using only his right hand.

"Understood." Dakara replied.

The ship quickly started to advance, passing the others of the colonial fleet in the dust as it went ahead full.

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"Ahead full, fire all weapons at targets of opportunity." Jack ordered. Not a moment later the ship was traveling into a denser grouping of battlestars, frigates and cruisers. Their fire bounced off the shields when they hid, most missing due to the speed and angle of the ships relative to each other. Daedalus fired her four Asgard beam weapons at two of the battlestars in sight, cutting threw them like warm butter.

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"You gods dame frakers, I'm not going to let a single one of you get out of here alive." Kara muttered under her breath as she activated her turbo boosters. With the reserve vipers in the fight and the survivors of the main force they outnumbered the Earth fighters thirty to one.

The two groups of fighters met in the middle, the 303s picking their targets and thinning the enemy numbers with anti-air missiles. With no more starbursts to use, the Avalons quickly pushed through the swarm of vipers, firing on any which had the misfortune of getting in their path in a dash for the enemy's rear. One of the vipers got in Mana's way, the port wing ripping the craft in two and flinging its pilot at a speed which snapped his neck.

The only effect it had on the Avalon was removing a significant part of the port wings green paint.

Reaching the end of the swarm, they turned around and started targeting the vipers still advancing towards the dogfight with their turbo at maximum, maxing maneuvering more than a few degrees impossible. It wouldn't last long, but for that critical minute those fighters where fish in a barrel.

Behind the dogfighting swarm, the Earth fleet opened fire on the colonials with the power of the Asgard beam weapons that kept empires of old awake at night. In a single blow half of the gathered battlestars and warstars were eliminated.

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In that instant, a part of Negala broke. They had not even entered weapons range, yet they had taken far too many loses. Without their battlestars, the smaller warships where almost useless strategically. Half the fleet was dead weight, and with how long it seemed those dame energy weapons they used seemed to recharge, it wasn't going to get any better. As he looked closely at the DRADIS, he made his choice.

"Comm. get the Alerian on the line. Order them to jump into where bogy numbers seven's path." The eyes of the CIC all looked at him as if he was an alien who had appeared out of nowhere. "Give the order, now!"

Now wasting a moment, the order was relayed.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Daedalus returned to the line of the Earth ships, having taken a few of the smaller warships out along the war and damaged countless more.

"Alright, 180 on the dime and all power to forward weapons and shields." Jack ordered. Not a moment later a flash appeared from the port side. "The hell was that?"

"Sir, that was the Saratoga." One of the operators informed him. His voice shook slightly, but he managed to keep the appearance of being professional. "It seems one of their frigates jumped right inside of it."

"All ships, evasive maneuvers!"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Tell the frigates from battle groups three, five, six, seven, ten and twelve to jump into the enemy ships. All vipers are to return to a battlestar or a warstar and all remaining ships are to return to our previous defold location." Negala knew it was over, but he wasn't going to take it lying down. He would make the Earthers pay in blood for this calamity.

"Admiral, what about the Aschen battleship?" His new XO asked. Negala looked up at the DRADIS. The battleship was flying full ahead towards the enemy, but they had seemed to deflect the weapons thrown their way. What they were doing and why was beyond him, but he didn't care.

"Leave them, they know the risks."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

From his seat on the bridge, the captain of the Aschen battleship watched as another colonial frigate was ripped apart. This one had tried to jump inside the Bonaventure, but the ship had slowed down at the last moment and rammed the small ship shield first. The extent of the damage to the Earth ship was unknown, but it was clear that it hasn't come out unharmed.

His ship, for its part, dodged another beam that missed by only a few kilometers. As they reached closer to the enemy ships, the odds of getting out of the way of their weapons lowered fast.

With the flick of his wrist, his pilot changed tactics.

"Ready sir." Dakara said, hand floating above his console.

The captain gave the signal.

In an instant, a hyperspace window opened up before the battleship.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"_That's another one." _Jon's voice said over the comm. system.

With the vipers in a full retreat back to their mother ships, the Avalons and 303s had a much easier time picking off the colonials. Though they had better maneuverability, the inferior speed and need to return to their ships left most of the vipers vulnerable to attacks from the rear, with most of the pilots who tried to turn to face the Earthers head on finding themselves ripped apart.

Mana had used her fighters speed to overshoot her enemies, not caring as some tried to take pot shots at her. She had a target: the battlestar ahead of her. Her marking marked her as the "Pegasus", and it seemed different from some of the other ones, much larger, though still less so then the warstars.

Her angle gave her very little flak, though there was still the grey flumes of conventional munitions going off around her.

She didn't care.

She quickly slowed down her speed as she entered one of the ships landing bays. She let the kinetic energy she had carry her as she turned her craft to aim towards the 'ground' of the bay, the logical location of any lifts or shafts used to house the enemy vipers. Not wasting a second, she unleashed a stream of plasma into the deck, melting large sections of it, and breaking open three decompression chambers.

As her fighter existed the landing bay, she caught a quick glimpse of people and equipment being blown out into space.

She would regret her actions later, but for now instincts were in control as she turned around and took aim at the retreating vipers.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

One by one ships from the colonial fleet started to disappear, returning from whence they came.

"Hyperspace window detected." The comment got Jack's attention.

"Where is it?"

"It's the Aschen battleship, it's…. it's jumping right passed us."

"All ships 180 and ahead full, stopping that battleship is top priority." Jack's order wasn't even finished when his ship was already moving to intercept the battleship, but none of them could reach it before it would reach the Earth and the almost pitiful weapons platforms.

Not the 304s anyway.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

This was it; this was the moment of vengeance for his people. The captain was in the clear, the enemy's fleet behind him and only a token defence ahead of him, the bio-weapon in his ship would kill the Tau'ri once and for all, and it….

"Captain, hyperspace window opening off to port." Dakara's voice was uneven. "It's, it's…"

The ship which immerged was massive. Three times as long as the 304s, and twice as wide as they were long, the large, arrow shaped ship dwarfed anything the Earth had on the battlefield. It was much smaller than a battlestar, but its force of presence alone made it far more intimidating that anything that had taken part in the fight.

Realizing what was about to happen, the captain acted quickly.

"Retreat." He said. Dakara didn't waste a moment. If the captain said an order verbally, you followed it without a second thought.

As the battleship turned around, Destiny opened up with her main guns against the smaller ship. Though not nearly as powerful as Asgard beam weapons, her anti-ship guns made up for the power disparity with a greater rate of fire and more guns.

As the Aschen battleship retreated into hyperspace, only moments of fire had forced her shields down and her outermost sections venting atmosphere.

The battle was over, the Tau'ri stood victorious.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

**Author's notes: **well, that went faster then I hoped it would, but I'm not that good at writing battles. Which is good, because this story isn't so much about the battles as much as it is about the effects the war will have on the colonials and the Aschen.

I feel I may have spent too much time on the Avalons without properly explaining what they were, but I wanted them in there and I tried, so that's at least that.

Anyway thanks for reading and I'll update as soon as I can (though no promises on when that will be, I have a life after all).


	3. Chapter 3

"**The Peak" orbital space station**

**Meeting room**

In his years in command of S.W.O.R.D., Director Jack O'Neill had learned that there was much more to his position as commander of all Earth's space based forces then being the one who gives orders. In fact, he didn't do nearly as much of that as most thought, with most strategies, plans and development ideas being made by specialists below him, with his role mostly being to approve or deny them ideas based on what he could see from his position at the top. The Ori energy weapon found on P8B-553 four months prior had been asked, almost begged for, by all five 304 fleet commanders, as well as the head of the planetary defence grid. None of them had been happy to learn Area 51 would be getting it for reverse engineering.

That was the easy part of his job. This, though, was the part he hated.

Politics.

In front of him in a semi-circle where nine holograms, each representing one of the members of the Extended Security Council of the UN. And none of them where happy.

Jack could understand that. For the first time in eighteen years it seemed that the perpetual state of conflict which had arisen because of the program was on the verge of ending. The Goa'uld Empire nothing more than a few isolated worlds lead by goa'uld who would have not have even been in charge of a garrison before the fall. The replicators, all of them, where gone and forgotten. The Lucian Alliance had collapsed, infighting and the systematic destruction of their fleets, both of war and of trade, by Earth had led to civil war and revolution. Though in name it survived in deed it was nothing more than a collection of warlords and young republics which had agreed to trade with each other, and maybe not have their broken down Ha'tak start shooting at each other. Maybe. Then there was the last threat which they were still at war with: the Wraith and the Vanir. In the years since Atlantis returned to Earth, the Wraith Fleet was cut down to size. Now only two hives and half a dozen cruisers remained. Task Force Hammond was tracking them, with a full deployment of most of the fleet planned for that week, though with the invasion those plans were being changed.

It was overkill, five 304s could easily handle the fleet of Wraith ships, but the problem wasn't them, it was the Vanir. They too where tracking the Wraith, their reasons unknown. Since first contact with the Asgard splinter faction, no direct contact had been made. When they would meet, hails went unanswered and the response was always shots being fired. The only things which were known was that they had only eight ships left, and they had dramatically ramped up the kidnappings of humans. The fleet would be sent out to finish both off once and for all.

That wasn't going to happen now, not as planned anyway. The colonials had ruined the schedule. Instead of a quick round trip to the Pegasus Galaxy and then a quick return to try and use diplomacy, even gunboat diplomacy, to prevent them from attacking while they had the chance. That had been made impossible. By the time they had learned of the advanced launch of the invasion, it was too late. They didn't know where any of the stations between the two powers where located, and had no means of detecting them outside of the solar system. They had the initiative taken away from them, and only had the option of gathering the troops and digging the trench lines. So they had, and they had won.

That didn't make any of it easier.

"So these Colonials" The Canadian minister of defence stated, getting Jack's attention. The hologram flickered slightly as the man moved some papers which were outside of the field of view. "They seem to have been given a rather nasty image of us by the Aschen. The loss of life on their part has been quite spectacular. Not even Anubis' invasion compared. It is the fear of this council that the oversight that is how well tabs where kept on both the remnants of the Aschen and the Colonials have dragged us into yet another war. Do you believe, Director, that we are in yet another war, on this day that we were about to finish the ones we already had on our hands?"

"To be honest, sir, I don't know." Jack admitted. "These people aren't that consistent with these things. Looking over their history they could treat this as a major skirmish they lost, or they could have it be the reason for full mobilization and a war economy. "

"I think it's safe to lean on the pessimistic side." The British minister stated. "The Colonials might not want to keep this going, but the Aschen most certainly do. We know this was their doing after all."

"So your top objective should be to turn the Colonials against the Aschen." The Chinese representative clarified. "Their numbers may be countered by our better technology, but so long as the alliance between them and the Aschen remain that gap could always close."

"Your secondary objective will be to find and destroy the logistical facilities they have between our worlds." The Russian minister finished. "Do you understand your orders?"

"Yes sir."

"Any questions or requests?"

"The use of the Avalons. We lost one hundred and eight of our 302s, if we're going on the offensive we need fighters."

"The mass production models won't be in service for another seven months, however we are granting S.W.O.R.D. the temporary use of Avalon's 1 and 3. Avalon 2 will remain on Earth for defence." The American senator stated. "Anything else?"

"Rules of engagement?"

"No intentional targeting of civilians, all else is on the table. We aren't letting these ones turn into another Ori."

"Understood."

"Alright then, meeting adjourned."

With that, the holograms disappeared. The lighting went from its central focus on the conference table to an even level around the room, revealing Jack's assistant who had been standing by the wall.

"How did they know what the other countries had agreed to?" The assistant asked.

"It's simple Thomas, it was all a recording made hours ago. They were just interactive recordings." Jack replied, turning to leave the room.

He had a war to plan.

Again.

**Romeo Site**

**Firing Range**

Firing another burst from the modified P90, Captain Rogers destroyed his eleventh target in a row. The black wood splintered and collapsed, nothing much above the knee level remaining. It was a typical shot from someone with experience using the weapon, but the Captain had never seen the weapon he held in his hand until an hour prior.

"Nice shot, you're almost as good as me." Jonathan said, leaning against the wall behind Rogers. None of the gathered soldiers reacted to his comment. The young man may have lost many memories from before his birth over the years, but the training Jack O'neill had was ingrained in him. When the day came that he would no longer remembered the other's life, he would still be a man with two lifetimes worth of training.

"Alright, if you think you're so good, why not try this?" Rogers secured his weapon before taking his large, red, white and blue shield and offering it to Jonathan.

Not skipping a beat, he accepted the offered shield. Down the range a dozen targets were up, ranging from twenty to fifty meters. Jonathan slowed his breathing and concentrated. With the eyes of a dozen French Canadian soldiers and one war vet on him, he swung his arm without letting go, picking his target. He did it again, preparing himself for the shot. The third time he did let go, and the shield flew down range to the closest target, smashing into its left side and ripping its 'arm' right off.

One of the soldiers retrieved the shield after making sure the range was cleared.

Captain Rogers then took it, and without looking or hesitating threw it down range. It hit the target Jonathan had damaged, this time hitting dead center and tearing it apart. It then continued and hit two others behind it before hitting the wall at the back of the range. It then moved towards other targets, and three hits against the side walls later the shield had taken out all the planks of wood, and returned to Rogers waiting arms.

Turning around, the Captain was greeted with the sight of shocked soldiers. He was used to it, first time always tended to leave that impression.

"Comment?" One of the gathered soldiers asked.

"Années de pratique." He replied.

The soldiers in the room spoke among themselves for a few moments, but all stopped as one of them yelled "room".

All quickly standing at attention, the mostly NCOs watched as the base commander walked in.

"Gentlemen, we just received a message from Earth." The commander stated as he studied the soldiers around him. "We won. One ship lost, one badly damaged, three minor damage. Most of the other bases will be demobilizing, though their equipment will be staying in place to expand their bases. Not here. Here we will be the front line. We're the closest planet we have to these 'Colonials' as it stands. We will be the resupply point for any operations against them. We will be the ones on the ground for any mission command deems requires out presents. Is that understood?"

"Yes Sir!"

"Good. We will be going into full mobilization as of tomorrow. A regiment from the British Army will be gating in next week to bluster our numbers. Until then, we'll be expanding the base to take in their troops and equipment. We will begin preparations at 0800 hours. Until then you're off duty. Understood?"

"Yes Sir!"

"Any questions?"

After a few moments of silence, the commander nodded to himself.

"Alright, as you were."

After the commander left, Jonathan let out a sigh.

"You know, SG-1 used to be the ones who always got these assignments."

"You're upset that you're being given responsibilities?" Rogers asked.

"No, I'm upset that I'm being treated like SG-1 without being ON SG-1."

**Atlantis 37****th**** laboratory**

**The Moon**

In the six years since the ancient city of legends had returned to Earth, much had changed. With the city being within easy travel range of the Earth, and with its existence declassified, the city had seen a return to life like no other in ten thousand years. Whereas with the old expedition only a few hundred personnel where in the city, today it had returned to its former glory with well over one hundred thousand civilians and soldiers of all kinds and walks of life.

The city's enormous size and countless facilities geared for one type of research of another had led to the best and brightest from all over the world to be sent to study new technology, reverse engineer old ones and learn the secrets which the city, as well as the Asgard Core, both held.

It was in one of these countless labs that a Canadian scientist made a brake threw.

"Eureka!" Rodney McKay yelled, making the others in his lab jump. "I've got it, I've got it!"

"Uh, you've got what, doctor?" One of the lab techs asked. Rodney turned to look at the man, taking his hands away from the drone he had been dissecting.

"I've figured out how to build drones!" The doctor didn't wait for anyone to respond as he ran out of the lab into the heart of the city.

"He does realize there's a rip in the back of his pants, right?" One of the younger scientists asked to no one in particular.

"No, and let's not tell him. We've earned that."

**Woolsey's office**

**Atlantis gate tower**

"_Commander, Dr. McKay is here to see you."_ Woolsey's intercom system barked.

"Tell him I'm not here."

There was a momentary pause.

"_Sir he says you clearly are since I asked for you and got a response."_

"Then tell him to go away, I'm very busy right now and…" Woolsey stopped as the doctor walked into his office. "And cancel my two o'clock."

As McKay took a seat across from Woolsey's desk, the men rolled his eyes.

"This better be important."

"It is." McKay quickly placed his tablet onto the man's desk.

"What am I looking at, doctor?"

"The means of building drones."

"Building drones? I thought we didn't even have a basic understanding of how those worked, that we were still years away from making our own."

"We were, but that's why they call it a break through." Rodney stated, almost twitching with excitement. "I was tinkering with the navigation hardware and it all fell into place: the balance of carbonate plastics, trinium, naquadah, it all fell into place. We were looking at it far too deeply; in hindsight it was so simple."

"Rodney."

"I'm actually a little ashamed it took so long to even see it."

"Rodney."

"Of course I would be the one to see it, but…"

"Rodney!"

"What?"

Woolsey leaned back in his chair. "I'm a little busy with the attempted invasion, so what do you want, and more importantly what do you need?"

"Oh, uh, well I needed some specific materials and equipment. I need to build one to see if my theory is correct." He explained. "I mean I know it is, but we still need to test it."

"Alright, and this list that needs my approval is…" Woolsey trailed off. Rodney lifted his hand, then paused, an embarrassed grin forming on his face.

"I'll… be back in an hour." He then took his tablet and made for the room's door.

"Give it to my secretary." Woolsey told him as he left. Despite his order, he had a bad feeling the man would barge back into his office again anyway.

**Tokyo-3 Nerv base of operations**

**Avalon hanger bay**

The large hanger within the underground base was abuzz with action. After their first trial of space combat, engineers and scientists where looking over every inch of the experimental fighters as they simultaneously replaced fuel packs and repainted the wings.

Though results were still hours away from being conclusive, everyone seemed to be in agreement on them already: resounding success.

Overlooking the three aircraft, the pilots kept a watchful eye on their children. Though only children themselves in the eyes of many, the pilots where already veterans of a short three month long war.

In another time they would have been seen as horrors of the system: child soldiers that had been forced to kill years before they should have been sent to basic. They were sadly not out of place in the world of the twenty first century. With their experience and equipment, it was only logical that the angel of war, angel of death and angel of conquest would be called again to defend the Earth.

"Captain Haida, Lieutenant-Commander Makinami, you're needed in the war room." One of the base technicians informed them.

"What about me?" Lieutenant Kirishima, pilot of Avalon 2, asked.

"No, they specifically stated you would not be needed."

As the two pilots left for their summons, the lone remaining one watching over the craft, hers having its green wings repainted and Starburst missiles replenished.

Unfortunately for her, she wouldn't see her compatriots or their fighters until the end of their tour of duty in space.

**Dakara**

**Jaffa High Council Chamber**

The Free Jaffa nation was one born from a cannon ball. Child of the Jaffa Rebellion, it was birthed into a galaxy which wanted nothing but it's destruction, be it at the hands of the Goa'uld, Replicators or Ori.

Having verged on civil war more than once, and never certain if it was a dictatorship or democracy, the young nation was simultaneously in a state collapse and a state of prosperity. Since the reformation a whole third of the nation had seceded. Some had been brought back into the nation threw agreements, some into trade partners, but far too many protected their new independence by the sword. These new worlds, unofficially known as the Trade Coalition due to their trade and defence agreements with each other, where in a cold war with the Free Jaffa Nation. Their numbers grew after one of their founding members repelled an attempt to restore order. With the cold war between the Trade Coalition and the Free Jaffa on a razor's edge, the minor worlds and the Lucian Alliance playing both sides and even rumors of Goa'uld kingdoms trading with both sides, the Council's verdict was no surprise.

"I apologize, but at this time we have no forces to spear and no warriors to assist you in your fight against these 'Colonials'. Though our nation is forever in dept. to the Tau'ri, we cannot give more than our support in spirit."

Cameron Mitchell was not surprised by the decision, but that didn't damper his disappointment.

**Undisclosed island in the South Pacific**

**Colonial PoW camp**

"Final headcount?"

"Twenty three thousand, two hundred fourth two."

The base commander sighed as he looked over the files he had been handed. Three more had disappeared since the last check. It didn't really matter, if they were still on the island then eventually they would be caught by one of the patrolling squads. If they chose try and swim for it, well, he could only hope they didn't have any information that others prisoners didn't.

"How are the interrogations doing?"

"Not very well, sir. We're still not even two percent threw them yet, and for the most part they don't seem to know anything we didn't already. These people are mostly NCOs and pilots, sir; they wouldn't know anything really important."

The base commander nodded. The information that had been brought before him so far was limited to out of date strategic information, Aschen propaganda, and typical human stubbornness. The Sagittarian prisoners seemed to be the most cooperative, though a few Libran ones had been more than willing to do the same.

"Thank you lieutenant, I have a report to write up."

**The Council**

**Ruling body of all Earth external and internal forces**

The chamber was filled with silence. The fifty seven seats where all filled by leaders of the government of each nation. Where there had once been nearly two hundred on Earth, a decade and a half of disasters and reforms had drastically whittled that number down. The Council itself rarely came to order, called only when the world needed to find direction and to make the hard choices as one on a dime.

The order of the day was for the long term plans for dealing with the 'Colonial Menace'.

Over hours of arguments and discussion, countless plans had been thrown out into the forum of ideas: from systematic destruction of the Colonial/Aschen military, to hit and run attacks on their industry, and even the destruction of their worlds threw orbital bombardment.

The last one was thrown out immediately, it was agreed that such an option would only go on the table if the threat to Earth that they posed was deemed to be on the same level as the act itself was.

"This confederation of worlds does not pose as great a threat as their numbers would claim." The German Chancellor reminded the other leaders. "While it is true they have twelve worlds, three of them have a population and industry which are too small to be worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things, while another is occupied by their own people. For all intense and purposes, they have the industrial capacity of eight planets to use against us."

"That's still eight of them against only one of us." The Korean President stated. "We can't let them have such a large industrial advantage over us. We need to divide them, turn them against each other."

Another round of arguments on plans, each argument brining the final image closer and closer to the final grand strategy.

After several hours of discussion, arguments and votes, the final plan was adopted.

Earth's grand strategy, to be implemented by S.W.O.R.D., was the destruction of the Aschen/Colonial alliance, disseminated of pro-Earth propaganda, a harassment campaign against the Colonial military and merchant fleets, and military assistance to planetary secessionist groups, primarily the Sagittaron Liberation Movement. The plan would be implemented after months of intelligence gathering and hunting for the transit stations between the Colonies and Earth, either for their capture or destruction.

**Office of Director O'neill**

**The Peak**

"So what exactly is the reason for this fancy presentation?" O'neill asked, leaning back in his seat. For whatever reason, Radek Zelenka had chosen to set up a projector and a white screen for it in his office.

"Well you see sir," Zelenka started, projecting an image of a 304 on the screen. "The Daedalus-class is starting to be strained under its different uses that it was never designed for. The ship was made to be more efficient at using alien technology we had found around the galaxy, but there was never any real intent for its purpose for missions. It's actually lucky for us that we've been able to use them for so many different types of missions without any of them having been the intent."

"And your point is?"

"We need a battleship, sir, and a carrier. Something dedicated to fighting ships, and to getting as many fighters in the air as possible. Those Colonial 'Battlestars' managed to get about a hundred fighters in the air to our dozen." He then moved to the next picture, a large ship which used Destiny for a point of reference for scale, with the ship being twice as long. "I call it the BC-306, a dedicated aircraft carrier capable of holding forty five Avalons or nighty 302s. Using four Asgard beam weapons on each broadside and two mounted as forward batteries, she could more then hold her own in a fight. Her power systems are also designed with cloaking technology in mind, meaning we wouldn't need a ZPM to disappear."

"Alright, that's all well and good, but it's not like a ship like that would really be a better use of resources for a battleship them…"

"It's not the only one I have, sir."

"Oh, then by all means show me what else you've got." The image changed again, this time to a ship which was slightly smaller than the Destiny, but had a very similar triangular shape that turned much wider at the end before its engines.

"This, sir, is what I call the BC-305, a true battleship if there ever was one." The image changed to a basic image of the interior plan. "She has three Ori beam weapons at her front; with her 'neck' marked by twenty four Asgard beam weapons in a three-by-four pattern on each side. With how the weapons are set, the guns have a window of fire covering eight times the area of the 304s. Her 'wings' also have twenty four magnetic anti-ship rail guns set up in a six-by-two pattern in each wing, capable of shooting slugs of metal at significant portions of the speed of light. She also has thirty five missile launchers on both her top and bottom hulls with a cargo bay capable of holding two hundred and fifty six more. There are also eighty four anti-fighter and anti-missile batteries. Last but not least is the four hundred staff canons distributed around the surface giving one hundred percent coverage for arc of fire from at least two dozen canons, and the cargo space for twelve hundred ancient drones."

"Uh, doc, what did you build this thing to kill, gods?" Jack asked, not sure why he wasn't even surprised by the idea brought before him. Nearly two decades with the program made being surprised hard after all.

"Well sir it wouldn't be the first time we had to, but I was more trying for blunt force for anything we could possibly come across. If we'd had something like this during the Ori crusade, none of their ships would have been able to get through the supergate. There's no kill live overkill, as they say."

"Alright, say I greenlight this project, where and how would we even build these monstrosities? It's not like we can build something that big planeside, and we don't have a shipyard." To answer Jack's question, the slid changed to an image of the Scorpio Shipyard.

"About that sir, I was thinking we could steal one of our own."

Jack contemplated the idea for a few moments.

"I'll send a request to the council, but I'm adding my own condition. Until then make a list of what you need to get this done."

"Thank you sir, but if I may ask, what condition will you be adding?"

Jack smiled. "For the first 306 to be called 'Enterprise'."

**Author's notes:**

I had a bit of trouble coming up with this chapter due to a bad case of writer's block. It was actually originally supposed to be about the Colonials and the immediate fallout from the failed invasion, but that's for next chapter now.

About the political situation, for the galaxy wide one, I never felt that the Lucian Alliance was a real threat to Earth (sorry SGU) being a collection of merchants and mercenaries. The Free Jaffa Nation was also something I never did see managing to hold together in the long term.

As for Earth politics, well, I did say this is set in the same universe as another fic I'm writing, and in that one due to natural disasters and political reform a lot of countries either don't exist or merged.

Anyway I'll try to update soon, but with this being the middle of mid-terms that could be longer then I'd like it to take.

Anyway thanks for reading and feedback is always appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

**Presidential Office**

**Caprica City, Caprica**

There was an air of tension in the large room. Six ministers, the President and Borren all sat around a conference table which had been brought in for the meeting.

In the hours since the return of the Aschen battleship, there had been a blitz of work from all departments of the government. Though the media had yet to be informed, the deafening silence had made it clear to every news outlet on every world.

The fleet had lost.

The numbers where upsetting, half the fleet's battlestars and warstars gone, with a third of the remaining classes suffering the same fate. As it stood only a quarter of the expeditionary force had escaped unharmed, the rest suffering from light to critical damage.

The point of the meeting was to determine how the war which had fallen upon them was to be dealt with.

"I have with me plans on modernization of the economy. With it there should be basic energy weapons and shields in production by this time next year." Borren stated. As he handed out the files to the appropriate ministers, the minister of the economy eyes him skeptically.

"And why, by any chance, did we not get this information before the expedition?"

"This technology is between one and four generations ahead of what is currently being disseminated into the economy. The plan has always been to uplift your worlds as fast as they can acclimate to it. That plan has been rewritten now."

The minister of defence laughed lightly. "We won't need to change your precious plans had your intelligence on the Earther's military had been so inaccurate."

"If I am not mistaken, your own military intelligence agency also vastly underestimated their military power with all the information we provided your people with."

Adar cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"We're here to discuss the mobilization and modernization of the military, not to point fingers. Leave that for the Quorum." He took a sip of his drink before looking down at the papers in front of him. "We'll have it put up to a vote, but now that we're already in a war I doubt anyone will vote against this plan."

"And what of the public? What will we tell them?" The minister of health asked.

"Only what they need to know."

**Ceti Anchorage**

**4 light-years from Earth**

The expeditionary force was in a state of controlled chaos. With the head of the expedition ordered removed from command by his ships doctor, and the second in a medically induced coma, that left the fleet under the command of the vice admiral in charge of the anchorage.

The troop transports had been the first to be sent home. Already filled to the brim, they were nothing but a resource drain on the fleet. The undamaged ships, twenty seven battlestars, three warstars and enough frigates and cruisers to provide escort, where left on heightened alert for defence on the station. Though they could do nothing to stop an invading fleet, if a lone patrol was detected then it was hopped they could fend it off long enough to evacuate the station.

The remaining, damaged ships of the fleet where put into three categories: those which could be repaired at the anchorage, those which would need to return to the home systems to be repaired, and those which would not survive the trip. Those which could not survive the trip home where being cannibalised for parts, their crews being transferred to the ships which would survive or the redundant logistical ships which were returning home with the damaged fleet. The discussion of where the line between which ships fell under what category was under heated debate, however.

"Admiral, I see no reason why the Pegasus couldn't continue operating with the expeditionary force." Cain's plead was far from surprising, but Vice Admiral Joana hadn't much cared for it.

"Rear Admiral Cain, you are aware that three quarters of the port flight bay is exposed to space, and that you've lost most of your battlerstar's vipers?"

"I fail to see how that is a problem. With how few vipers we have left we can limit our operations to the starboard flight bay. It might take longer than most of the fleet to fix the port flight bay, but it CAN be fixed here, and unlike most of the ships in this fleet we have onboard viper construction and training facilities."

The Vice Admiral took a moment to think about it. Though they knew full well it was true, he had hoped that Cain wouldn't realize the benefit her ship would be to the expeditionary force. It wasn't that he didn't think she was a competent commander, he just didn't like her, and as unprofessional as it was he would have been much happier to see her ship go home then have it stick around longer the he'd like. But he had no choice, since he knew someone would grill him back home for it.

**Colonial Intelligence Agency office**

**Seven decks below**

Since the return of the fleet to the anchorage, the Colonial Intelligence Agency was flooded with data on the Earthers. Several raptors had deployed satellites in the system's asteroid belt to try and intercept all transmissions from the small planet.

That left them with a large problem, though. They had assumed its transmissions would be on the same level as one of the more heavily populated worlds. They were gravely mistaken. For a world of 3 billion, the Earth was transmitting data comparable to the whole of the Colonies, mostly concentrated in the northern hemisphere. The AM and FM bands had been abandoned altogether, the white noise of so many transmissions on the frequencies even from the seemingly empty southern island continent made every attempt to gather information render nothing but incomprehensible white noise from transmission overlap.

For satellite video communications it was much simpler. The mega continent seemed to have many subdivisions which had at most a few dozen channels being used, while the other northern continent seemed to have farm more channels being used by single points of origin, but was limited to mostly two sources of these broadcast frequencies.

The classification of data was hard, however. The Earthers seemed to delight in the use of language, the likes of which made the staff wish they had more than one linguist with them. Where the colonies typically had a single distinct language of their own and maybe, if one of the larger ones, a few dialects which branch off it, the Earthers had at least twelve distinct languages they could see, and they had yet to sift through more than a fraction of their collected data. The rate of information being collected far outpaced their ability to proses it.

At this moment, two of the agents where trying to figure out if a specific and quite horrifying piece of intercepted broadcast, was real or not.

"I'm telling you, this craft here is the same one which was used in the battle." The younger agent said. He pointed to the blurry printout of a green craft which had damaged the Pegasus and compared it to a screenshot from a broadcast. The screenshot showed a much more clear green craft of similar size and shape to the blurry image.

"I don't know, for all we know they like to be very colourful with their equipment. Just look at that thing Sevos was handling, five people dressing up in coloured spandex to punch monsters? Preposterous." The older one replied.

"But sir, it's clear that the armaments are the same as those used against our fleet." The younger one countered. "Just look at the clip."

He played an extract of the recording, clearly taken from some sort of hovering craft from a great distance. The craft was flying low over a wide open field towards two… things.

"So what you're saying is the Earth seems to be infested by these giants?" The older one asked.

"It doesn't seem so; the way they seem to have everything set up seems more like the deflection of an invasion instead of." He typed a bit on the controls and played different recordings on the dozen or so monitors before them. Each showed different fleets or armies on the ground, but all seemed to point to external invasion. "I do have some good news, and bad news. Good news is that our attack may end up being a footnote to these people. Bad news is that it seems that they know how to repel an invasion. By gods it almost looks like a pastime to this place."

"What could such an insignificant planet have that so many aliens would want?" The older agent pondered out loud. He was uncertain which was more scary, the fact that there where evidently so many different alien races out there, or that the Earthers seemed to have such ease at repelling them.

"I think I have the answer to that, but you're not going to like it." A third agent said, entering the large room with several tapes in her hands.

"Oh really, and what would that be agent Inviere?"

Gina frowned as she placed a tap into one of the player. For a long hour none of the three said a word as the tape played clips gathered from the recordings. The clips showed people, mostly teenaged, demonstrating things which should not have been possible. The clips, from what appeared to be amateur footage to professional interviews, showed different examples that Gina had collected of Earthers showing off what could not be quantified.

One clip which stood out was a teenaged boy, no more than fifteen, in an interview with a woman. What they said wasn't relevant nor understood, but the action was startling. The boy got up after a bit of talking and stood a few feet away from the interviewer. Then the boy's eyes started to glow blue. The interviewer then threw some sort of balloon at the boy, but instead of hitting them it collided with an unseen wall between them. The paint within the balloon then fell to the ground the moment the boys eyes stopped glowing.

The other clips where much of the same, though the oddities shown where dramatically different. When the tape came to an end, there was a long silence.

"I think…" Gina started, before the older agent cut her off.

"That's impossible." The man muttered. After he didn't say anything else for a few moments Gina continued.

"As I was saying, I think the Earth may have titans and demi-gods among them, or possibly the living descendants of them."

"The scripts said all the titans and demigods died before the exodus." The younger agent said. "How could they just show up on Earth after all this time gone? The gods are no longer corporeal."

"But could a true god not return to life at will?" Gina asked back. "And besides, there could have been mistakes. Record keeping from that time is downright pathetic. There is only one passage in all of those holy texts which references Earth, and none mention the Aschen or…" She waved her hand towards the monitors which displayed alien craft invading Earth. "Or any of THIS. I mean for the love of the gods, we know literally nothing about what the universe is like outside of the Earth-Cyrannus corridor outside of the fact that somewhere is a planet called Kobol and what's left of the Aschen's home."

"I have a report to write." The older agent said, storming out of the room.

"If this gets revealed to everyone back home, a lot of people will be afraid and angry." The younger agent noted.

"Oh, and what makes you say that?"

"Because we're all professionals here, and even with that he's angry and I'm afraid."

**New Oreidan City, Sagittaron**

"… And do you swear to adhere to the letter of the law and to remain an outstanding citizen of the colonies?"

"I swear."

"Then by the power invested in me by the government of the United Colonies of Kobol, I hereby grant pardon to Thomas Zarek of Sagittaron." The Libran judge said, banging his gavel.

Minutes later, as the controversial figure and his lawyer exited the courthouse; they were predictably swamped by reporters.

"Mister Zarek, now that you're free are you planning on rejoining the SLM?"

"Is it true you're planning on running in the planetary election in two years?"

"Do you have anything to say to critics who are claiming you're just going to go back to terrorism after this?"

Tom smiled as he looked into the closest camera and leaned back slightly from the microphones being shoved towards his face.

"I am by no means planning on running for the house in two years. It wouldn't matter if I did, our Caprican, Picon and Tauron overseers wouldn't allow me to run anyway. I also hold no plans to return to my colourful past, that part of my life is behind me and I'm a changed man." He leaned forward slightly and gave a small grin. "My membership in the SLM, however, will remain unchanged so long as there are other worlds telling us what to do, making our laws for us and continuing the centuries of oppression and occupation which not even the Cylon War put an end too."

No one gathered was really surprised by his statements; it was more or less what his manifesto made during his imprisonment.

"How do you feel about the expedition to restore order with the Earth?" One of the younger reporters asked. That got Tom's full, undivided attention. Looking at the young reporter, the angered look caused the young man to shiver.

"So that's what they're calling it, eh? I remember the last 'restoration of order' by the fleet. Fifty thousand people died in the brutal crackdowns. Innocent people, MY people, all we wanted was greater autonomy, to have our laws made by our people like all the other colonies do, and what did we get for it? Our brothers and sisters being killed by a bunch of have-worlders who felt it was more important to get us back to work, and the dead bodies be dammed. The fact that we haven't heard about the 'glorious victory' the imperialistic expedition has caused means something happened, and I think the Earthers may have smashed the fleet we sent to enslave them. Whatever it was, I don't think our soldiers will be coming home in victory, and by gods do we have no right to complain." He claimed himself down and straightened his composure. "I honestly hope we didn't win this fight, because our history is troubled enough with what our worlds did to this world and my people, why should I hope they succeed in doing it again to another world?"

The reporter was sweating bullets, the outburst more then what he'd been prepared for.

"Uh, but" he stuttered. "But what about what they did to the Aschen? They destroyed their world in an act of aggression. If we didn't restore order the same would happen to us."

"Oh please, we only have the Aschen's word for it. For all we know they tried to take over the Earth and kill most of their people."

"You can't seriously believe that, they wouldn't do something like that."

"How do we know that? We didn't know them before they were reduced to a fleet of wanderers, they could have been anything. What if the attack was at the end of some long war of aggression started by the Aschen? What if it was a freak accident that they blame of them? Or what if countless other things, because we never asked the Earthers what happened, we just saw the new interesting toys they were offering and believed everything they said because of it."

The young reporter said nothing as Tom walked past him to the awaiting car.

XXXXXXXX

"_My fellow Colonials, today is a grim day for us all. Earlier today I received word that the expeditionary fleet was brutally and maliciously attacked lead by a military governor of the Earth._

_Our estimates for the tyrannical world's military was severely underestimated, not only destroying a significant part of the fleet but even destroying one of our Aschen brother's strongest battleships and forcing the other to retreat, damaged but not lost._

_To meet this new crisis, mobilization of key sectors of the economy has begun to modernize our armed forces to bring it to the same level as the Aschen._

_I will not lie; there will be costs, both in the financial and the human sense._

_We are at war the likes of which we have not seen since the Cylon uprising decades ago._

_It may be a long road ahead of us, but we shall be victorious. We have the greater numbers, a stronger economy, better technology and the will of the Gods behind us._

_We will meet them in the field of battle, and we shall prevail."_

As the broadcast continued, its climax past, Borren allowed himself a slight smile.

"Something amusing you?" The man beside him asked.

"Nothing Two, nothing at all. Don't you have to be attending to right now?"

"Yes sir."

"Then go to it."

"By your command."

Borren's smile widened. Yes, even with the setback the plan was slowly falling into place.

The reprogramed Cylons had fit into their new role better than could be hoped for, and their own infiltration of Colonial society gave them spies all over the military and government. It was only a matter of time until the Colonials found their place as the farmers of the new empire, and the Earth was put in its rightful place.

The heart of a black hole.

XXXXXXXX

Author's notes: This one was a little short for my taste, but I honestly couldn't think of a way to pad it out which was within my abilities that wasn't just pointless filler. Brevity is the soul of wit after all.

The upcoming chapters will be more mix and match with parts from both sides.

Hope you enjoy the twist, I sure love writing twists after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Atlantis Control Chair**

**Atlantis**

"Are you sure this is going to work?" John Shepard asked as he leaned himself back in the seat.

"Of course I am, what type of scientist do you take me for?"

"Well sorry Rodney, but in my experience when you make something new it tends to blow up a solar system."

"That happened ONE time."

"And that's one more than anyone else alive." Rodney rolled his eyes at the comment.

"Enough talk, you ready?"

"Yeah I'm ready."

"Alright, beginning Earth-built drone test…. Now."

Just outside the city on the surface of the moon, three drones started to charge up. They levitated a few feet off the ground for a moment, and then promptly exploded.

"Uh, Rodney I…"

"Yes Shepard, I know." Rodney's annoyance was clear as he looked over the data that had been collected. Suffice to say, the test had not gone as planned.

The test had been meant to be flight maneuvers to see how well the manmade drone prototypes preformed compared to the ancient ones. Much to Rodney's displeasure, it was back to the drawing board.

**Science lab 12**

**The Peak**

"I'm telling you the power regulation system will cause it to overload if we tried firing it." One of the scientists almost shouted.

"And I'm telling you the cooling system will more than compensate for the problems." Zelenka shot back.

"What's going on in here?" O'neill asked. Having been called down to the lab, he hadn't been expecting to find two of his best and brightest on the verge of yelling at each other. That was usually reserved for the afternoon hours, and the station's local time was still late morning.

"Doctor Slevig here things that the power regulation system for the 305 will cause an overload if we tried to shoot the Ori beam weapons." Zelenka explained.

"Will it?"

"Well no but…"

"And what would it take to prevent it from happening, just in case it does?"

"Well…" Zelenka was cut off by the other scientist.

"It would only take the system being rerouted to compensate for the additional coolant being used."

O'neill took a moment to look over the schematics the two men had before them, pretending he could see a difference between the two.

"Would, if this hypothetical situation was incorrect, the changes be adverse to the performance of the ship?"

"Of course not." Selvig stated flatly.

Zelenka sighed. "No, it wouldn't."

"Then do it just in case. I'd hate for our new ship to blow up on us because of such a small oversight."

As O'neill left the two, Zelenka groaned in frustration.

"Why couldn't you have stayed working on cosmic radiation or whatever down in Area 51?"

**Picon Command Station**

**Picon orbit**

When Supreme Commander of all Colonial Forces, Grand Admiral Bastiel, would usually walk down the hall which had his main office at one end and the heart of the station's CIC at the other, it was always with an air of dread. In those around him, that is. One wrong step in front of the Grand Admiral could mean the end of one's career, or at least that was the rumor everyone passed around. It wasn't true, but how was he to dispel such myths.

The first sign that something was wrong, as a result, was when on his walk from his office to the CIC none of the ensigns turned their usual shade of white at the sight of him. His second was the fact that they were moving as fast as they could without running before they even saw him. Third was that security forces where running around in full battle gear.

With how jumpy everyone was, the only thing he could think was 'kids these days'. It wasn't as if some Cylon fleet was invading.

Entering the CIC, the level of activity was that just short of condition one.

"Commander, status report."

"Admiral, we have one hundred thirty seven ships that just defolded between the alpha and beta system."

The Grand Admiral took a seat at the top of the command center, his position to look over the rest of the CIC from.

"Open a line and confirm IFF."

"Yes sir… it's the Expeditionary Force Army Fleet."

The grand admiral looked over the CIC as they went about their business. With the fleet's identity confirmed, even if they knew it already, the mood lightened up quite a bit.

"Give them their approach, and tell the general I said 'welcome back'."

**Romeo Site**

**Gate room**

Several moments after the gate created its familiar vortex, two individuals walked through. Each had a large duffle bag slung over their shoulders and a metal box in their arms.

"Pilots Haida and Makinami reporting as ordered, sir." The young man stated, doing the best salute he could muster with all he was carrying.

"At ease Captain, Lieutenant. Welcome to the Romeo Site." As the base commander greeted the two NCOs took the metal boxes they carried.

"Thank you sir, it's good to be in a Canadian command again." Jon said as he went at ease. His British counterpart didn't seem as enthused about it though.

"I don't really much care for whom I am ordered to follow, it is all for Queen and Country after all." Marry stated flatly. It was clear that she didn't really mean what she said, it was clear boredom mixed with what was clearly expected of her with no attempt to pretend to be joyful.

"Now now Marry, it'll just be a few days before you fighter gets here." Jon replied. The commander sighed to himself. The future of the human race, in the hands of children like this. It was a horrifying thought, though one each generation probably had at one point or another.

As the two were dismissed and started to walk towards the barracks, one of the NCOs took a moment to speak with the commander.

"Sir, with all due respect are their presents really necessary? I've heard about their kind before, where one goes nothing but trouble follows, and now we have three of them here. Isn't that just tempting fate?"

The commander had a stiff chuckle at that question.

"We're the front line in this new conflict right now; we've already asked her for trouble. Something will happen weather or not they're here. Though I think you may have things in the wrong order. It looks more too me that they are the ones who follow trouble, not the other way around." The commander then tapped on the metal box the NCO held in his arms. "I do believe that belongs somewhere."

"Yes sir." With his orders, the NCO ran off.

The commander, now alone to his thoughts, thought about what the NCO had said. It was true that trouble seemed to follow 'their' kind, and now the base had three of them instead of just one. For all he knew more would be on the way by order of high command.

He immediately ordered a heightened readiness level, just in case.

Down in the barracks, there was an air of tension with the two new arrivals.

"What's so special about those two?" Jonathan O'neill asked one of the soldiers.

"What do you mean 'what's so special about those two'? Those are the Angel of Death and the Angel of Conquest. They're from Alpha Strike, speak of the Strike Force. They're living weapons of war raised from birth to kill." The soldier explained, slight fear in his voice. "If command is sending them, they must either think this is going to go under, or they really, really want to make sure it works."

"They just look like regular kids out of basic to me." Jonathan stated flatly. "What do you think captain?"

Captain Rogers had been watching from a distance, not wanting to be involved.

"To be honest, I don't like it. Back in my day we had a little thing call 'minimum age of acceptance'. Sure a lot of us lied back then, but those two wouldn't have fooled anyone. I don't care if it was deemed necessary; we shouldn't be using kids like that for war."

"You know, in most of Earth's societies we are considered adults." Jon stated, having clearly overheard the three soldiers from across the barracks. "I don't like it when people doubt my abilities even after the trials we've been through. We saved the Earth once, you know. Sure it's not as often as SG1 has, but we saved it none the less."

As the young man was speaking, his eyes had started to glow a light blue. To Jonathan it was all too much like a Goa'uld, even if the colour of the glow was different and the voice didn't change.

Marry put her hand of Jon's shoulder, instantly calming him down.

"It's alright, it's not our fault they can't appreciate the work we do." The calm tone of her voice did more to calm the young man more than the words did.

"Still, it's just unfair that everyone looks up to you" Jon put emphasis on the 'you' as he motioned to Captain Rogers. "Just for being the first one. We're just like you, you know. If we'd been alive back in your day, the history books would have our names next to yours for those 'greatest generation' heroes who took down Hydra."

The young man stormed off towards the shooting range.

"Sorry about that, he gets agitated easily when he hasn't let off steam. He's much more professional when he's on the clock." Marry informed them before running off after him.

Rogers and O'neill hoped he was right, for all their sakes.

**The former Ragnar Anchorage **

**Lower Decks**

Borren needed time to think. Time to himself to review what his plan of action should be. In moments like this he chose to come to the tanks. He wasn't sure why, but being with what would soon be the next generation always allowed for clarity of thought.

The tanks where arranged 5 high to a wall in countless rows, extending row on row in an efficient layout, or at least as efficient a layout as the facility's original designs could allow for.

The plan was falling apart, a new one being forged as they spoke. The old plan was simple and efficient: destroy the Earth with bioweapons, and then destroy the fleet by picking them off one by one as they lay silent due to the shutdown program.

Things where a lot more complicated now.

The Earth was out there, likely to be getting into a long drawn out war, one where the Colonies where likely to have to be uplifted enough to win despite the tech disparity. The Earthers had a clear advantage in technology, but they could be beaten. The only question was how.

"Excuse me sir, you're in my way."

On instinct he took a step back, allowing the Six to walk by with a cart. She stopped a few meters away and started to work on one of the tanks.

Borren felt a pinch of sadness as the Six removed the tank and placed it on the cart. He was fully aware that 2.61% of the children brought up in this manor did not reach maturity, not with the low quality materials they had to work with after the fall.

As the not human woman replaced the tank with a new one, he was reminded what he was working for.

For a long time after the Six had left he stood there, watching the new tank, the child within almost too small to be seen inside the green liquid.

**Cylon Colony**

**Orbit around a black hole 126 light years from Cyrannus system**

Administrator Morit had been less then pleased with his mission. For over a year now he had been responsible for the few dozen Aschen who had been placed in charge of the Cylon main base of operation. There was nothing for him to do; any issue that wasn't handled by the different mechanical robots was handled by the biotic ones which used to lead them.

There were few things Morit hated, but being useless was one of them. With how little there was to do at this post, he may as well only pretend he's doing his job because no one could tell the difference if he stopped.

So imagine his surprise when he got the first unscheduled message from the home base.

The message was from Administrator Borren himself, and was short. Only two lines of text.

_Downfall has failed._

_Begin Fallback immediately._

Morit was upset that the revenge his people wanted had been dashed, but the joy of having work, real work, to do was so overwhelming his lip turned up almost enough to be visible.

Yes, there was work to do.

**Columbia Battle Group**

**Solar system several light years from Earth**

For the past few days, the lone Battlestar and its escort ships was one of multiple groups sent out to map the area around the Earth's system.

The one they were currently in was an oddity. Based on the material floating around in the system, it was clear that around ten to fifteen years before there had been a planet in the habitable belt of the system.

Key word being 'had'.

The unstable orbit of the three moons that had once orbited the now gone planet and the debris of the remains of the world showed two things. First was that it was quick. Second was that it was from the top going down. Whatever it was, it started at the surface and made its way down until it reached the other side.

Both the speed and intensity eliminated natural means, which left only one possibility.

Someone blew up the planet.

How or why didn't really matter, what mattered was that someone COULD, and whoever it was, it wasn't the Colonials or the Aschen.

"You're absolutely sure of these findings?" Adama asked as he looked over the math that he couldn't even pretend to understand.

"Yes sir, we had four officers who were qualified crunch the numbers independently, all came to the same conclusion as I did." Gaeta informed him.

"Alright, dismissed." Bill took a moment to think about the implications. A whole planet. A whole gods dammed planet.

He wondered how many had called it home. It must have been more than a few, or else it wouldn't have been worth the effort. Billions at least, maybe even more than Gemenon. He wondered what possible war would have caused anyone to go to such lengths. A final act of desperation? The depraved actions of a power mad megalomaniac?

Was Earth really this powerful? Was it they who had committed this unspeakable action?

Or worst, what if it wasn't them? What if it was some third party which was still out there that he didn't know about?

Then, a third option came to his mind. What if it was the Aschen? What if this had been an Earth world that the Aschen destroyed? What if this HAD been Earth, and the world they attacked was but a colony? What if the artificial black hole the Earthers had dropped on the Aschen was an act of revenge, a fully justified one at that?

Too many questions, too many unknowns, not enough answers.

Just what frakked up galaxy has the Aschen dragged them into?

"Uh sir."

"Yes what is it?" Adama hasn't realized how much time had passed as he was in his own thoughts. The young ensign was just barely looking in the office.

"One of the raptor pilots found something. Whatever it is, it's artificial, some sort of superconductor."

"Where is it?"

"It seems to be stuck in the gravity well of a gas giant."

"Move to intercept and bring it aboard." Adama got up from his desk and left for CIC. It was about time some of the questions got answers.

**Resident of Tom Zarek**

**Sagittaron**

It was late, long after the worlds local sun had set. Two of the three other suns in the system where visible, but from the distance the world was from them they were but noticeably brighter stars in the night sky.

Tom didn't really notice this as he entered his home. The first thing he noticed when he turned on the light was that someone had crushed the bug that was hidden in his lamp. He was slightly disappointed; he'd planned on messing with whoever was listening in from Colonial Intelligence.

The second was the man sitting in his chair with a gun.

"If you're here to kill me get it over with."

"I'm not here to kill you, mister Zarek." The man informed him. His accent had a very rough Canceron element to it, but it has something to it which made it sound off.

"Well don't keep me waiting; I've had a long day." Tom didn't pay the man much mind as he walked into his kitchen and started making himself some food.

"I'm here to ask a question, and make an offer." The mystery man said.

"And that would be?"

"What do you want?"

Tom took a moment to think about the question. What does he want? What type of question was that? It was so simple, so vague, it could mean anything. But if the man was here, it was clearly for less personal and more professional reasons. So that means…

"What I want is for my world to be free. To not live under the boot of Caprica and Picon." He finished making his sandwich and moved to the dining table. "Now what does that have to do with you?"

"It's simple; I'm here to offer you the chance to accomplish that."

"What interest does Earth have in that?"

The mystery man simple chuckled at the question. "And how, exactly, did you figure out where I was from?"

"Where else would you be from? Your accent was a tip but what really gave it away was how you asked your question."

"You're a lot smarter then you look."

"Well mister Earth man, I did go to college." He took a few bites out of his food before continuing. "So what was that offer you mentioned?"

"Well, we can help you achieve your goal. The sooner the better." The man walked up to his table and placed a small box next to his plate.

"What's this?"

"A gift from my world to let you understand our intention." The mystery man walked into the bathroom. "We'll keep in touch. Don't call our people, we'll call you."

With that he closed the door. For a moment Tom wondered what the man could be doing, but then there was a light and an odd sound which came from the room. He quickly stood up and ran to the door, finding it to be empty. Which was impossible due to the window being too small for a person.

Tom thought about what had happened, the man's implications where startling. In his tired state of mind, he knew that it wouldn't be until after a night of sleep and a solid day of contemplation that he'd understand all the possible implications.

Returning to the table, he opened the box he had been left, finding a glass vial and a note. The vial had some sort of purple liquid in it, but it was the note which caught his attention.

_Cure to the sterility drug_

Sterility drug? What could be…?

"Frak!" echoed through the Sagittaron night as realization hit Tom.

**HMCS Gatineau**

**Bridge**

"How'd the first date go Colonel Mitchell?" The captain asked.

"Left him hanging and wanting more, sir."

"Alright. NO, take us out of orbit and head for the Romeo site."

The navigator gave a 'yes sir' before taking the cloaked ship into hyperspace.

**President's office**

**Caprica City, Caprica**

The doctor put away his equipment before addressing Adar.

"The good news is it wasn't a stroke."

Adar knew better then to be humored by the likes of the doctor that was sitting next to him.

"But?"

"But, your blood pressure is far too high, and unless you turn things around soon the next call WILL be for a stroke."

"Yeah yeah, doc, that's what you tell me every time." Adar said as the doctor left the room. When he was gone he finished. "It's not as if I'll need another term after this. Or get the chance to see it."

He opened his desk drawer and took out a bottle. It wasn't until he was two thirds threw it that someone came in.

"Mister President, the minister of commerce is here to see you."

"Alright, send him in."

The minister of commerce was by far the youngest minister in the cabinet. Only twenty nine, he was considered a rising star within the party, and it believed by many that he would someday be sitting in the president's chair.

Someday, but today he was just the minister of a department which was mostly redundant due to the ministry of the economy.

"Good morning mister president."

"Jonas, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Jonas took a seat across from the president.

"Well sir, I've had a proposal that needs your approval, but 'proper channels' haven't allowed for it to reach you and I feel as though now is a better time than any, in light of recent events."

"Alright, and that proposal is?" Adar was handed a file, though in his state of mind the writing was too fuzzy to make out. "I'm a busy man, Jonas, cut to the chase."

"Well sir, the proposition is to have five of the old mothballed battlestars and several of the other, smaller class ships to escort them. The plan is to simply map out the area within 100 light years of our solar system. Given recent events it would be prudent to have these areas as an early warning system in the event of an outside attack. The industry of our worlds would also benefit outside of military contracts in the form of natural resource exploitation and the potential for habitable worlds for our people to set up new colonies on. Who knows, we may find another lost colony just as the Aschen."

The last comment made Adar's blood become cold. Another group like them out there? The only thing they would be good for would be to play them off of the Aschen to try and get both to play nice with the Colonies.

He squinted his eyes to see the numbers. Fifteen thousand military personnel and about three billion cubits. An acceptable drain on resources, the naval reserves had more than enough people they could call upon for the mission, and it would only take the discovery of a moderate size tylium deposit to justify the financial costs, it was nearly a sure thing. There was just one problem.

"It violates the armistice."

"With all due respect, sir, we already violated the armistice twice now. Once with the boarder incident, and again with the liberation… correction, attempted liberation of Earth." Jonas countered.

"You have a good point there." Adar did his best to look over the document again. Seeing nothing wrong, he signed his name and stamped the corner.

"Thank you sir. You shall not regret this decision." As Jonas took his leave, Adar felt as though he was already starting to.

It wasn't until he sobered up that he realized Jonas knew classified information that should have been beyond the reach of his hands.

**Atlantis**

**The Moon**

The city had been evacuated of unessential personnel for the operation. All of the scientist short of McKay and a few others had been sent Earthbound, as had almost all the civilians and absolutely all the children had as well. All that remained in the city that held over fifty thousand (with plenty of room to spear) was a few hundred technicians to keep the ship running, and three thousand soldiers from the US, British and German armies. On the surface of the city, six 304s where latched on. They had simply been docked at first, but the artificial gravity system of both they and the ancient city would hold them firmly in place.

The city, stationary for years on the surface of the moon, started to rise. It was slow at first, the engines returning to life after years of dormancy. Then the rising was faster, the gravity of the moon being escaped. It was less than a minute after it had all started that the massive ship entered hyperspace.

Their destination: The Romeo site.

Operation Grand Heist had begun.


	6. Chapter 6

**T -0:30:00**

**Void between the stars in the Cyrannus system**

In the quiet darkness of space, three hyperspace windows opened. From two emerged 304s from the Romeo site, both activating cloaking devices without hesitation. The third was Atlantis, which took several moments to do the same. The operation was in motion, eight 304s, the ancient city ship, a full complement of 302s and six thousand soldiers.

Without the need for a message thanks to planning, the three ships parted ways, one 304 heading for Picon, one for Caprica, and Atlantis for Scorpia.

**T -0:10:00**

The 304 above Caprica was in place. With the blue Avalon 1 and a compliment of ten 302s, the lone ship waited for the signal.

The 304 heading towards Picon would be the last to reach its destination, having to launch its pink Avalon 3 and compliment of 302s while still in motion.

Atlantis was in position around Scorpia, just inside the range of the city's transport system. As everyone started to get into their positions, they one by one signaled their status to the gate room within Atlantis.

**T-0:00:00**

**Scorpia Shipyard CIC**

Commodore Karth rubbed his eyes. As the night commander of the shipyard, he wasn't expected to do much in his dead end position. The old, balding man was long past his prime. Like many of those his age he was a veteran of the Cylon war, and like many he was nearing the end of his career. His retirement was a few months away.

"Sir, I think could use this." Karth's assistant said, offering him a coffee.

"Thanks. You always seem to know just what I need and when I need it." He paused to take a few sips. "Now if only my wife could make it this good."

"Thank you sir I…. do you smell that?"

"No, but if it's anything it's probably another dead rat in the vents." The Commodore looked up at the exhaust above his head. "Dame ground pounders can't seem to keep them off their shi.. shi.. sh…"

"Sir? Sir!" The assistance panicked as he saw Karth fall to the ground. Before he could do anything he suddenly felt lightheaded, dizzy. Looking around, he saw the others in the CIC starting to drop like flies. Falling to his knees, the last thing he did before going into a deep sleep was to hit the station's alarm.

Moments later, a flash of light brought in a dozen people all wearing combat gear and a gas mask.

"_Ah son of a bitch, one of them tripped the alarms."_ One of the soldiers said over the comm. _"O'neill to Atlantis, Blitz blitz blitz!"_

**T-00:00:00**

**Picon Command Station**

"What is it?" Bastiel demanded as an alarm started to sound on the CIC.

"Sir, we're detecting an unknown a hundred thousand out." The dradis operator informed him. "Sir, they're launching fighters."

"Launch defence vipers and get the firing solution on the batteries." Bastiel ordered. "Set condition one threw the station. Get the defence fleet out there, and get a viper to the fleet right now."

"Yes sir."

With his orders the CIC went from being a dormant creature into a hive of activity.

**T -00:00:00**

**Caprica orbit**

The fleet around Caprica had their attention grabbed by the lone ship which appeared out of nowhere. Unscheduled and with no active IFF, this was a textbook case for intercept procedures.

What they didn't expect was for the two cruisers dispatched to intercept to disappear well outside what should have been its weapons range. Or for a dozen fighters to be launched a moment later. Most took up a defensive formation around the ship.

One made a beeline for Caprica City.

**T +00:05:00**

**Scorpia Shipyard**

"What the hell is going on?" Joles asked as the two ran down the corridor.

"No idea, just keep running." Hathen replied. As they reached a bulkhead, some of the mystery soldiers turned a corner. Wearing masks which covered their faces, they held strange weapons. As they closed and locked the bulkhead, the weapons fire missed, hitting the walls ahead of them. Though the expected some ricochet from the bullets, none occurred as the weapons energy had no mass.

"The hell type of gun is that?" Joles asked in a panic as Hathen locked the bulkhead in place.

"No idea, but that should stop them." They took a moment to catch their breath, only to see an odd glow. The bulkhead started to have a light green glow in the form of a two meter wide ring. The two slowly backed away, taking a moment to try and understand what they were seeing. Deciding it wasn't a good idea to stick around; both started to run towards the next bulkhead.

By the time they had opened it, the two meter wide piece of bulkhead fell to the ground, revealing several of the mysterious soldiers. The two tried to close the new bulkhead as quickly as possible, but before they could finish a piece of metal found itself stuck in the way, forcing the hatch open. The meter wide disk, curved and painted bright colours, was wedged between the hatch and the frame, only missing Hathen's eyes by an inch.

"W-what the..?"

Before either could react, both fell from an electric shock.

Above their now unconscious bodies, Captain Rogers took back his shield.

**T +00:06:00**

**Picon Command Station**

The two battlestars and four cruisers that had been docked at the command station where forming up into a defensive screen, the three hundred vipers shared between them and the station waiting to swarm the ship along with the missiles from several dozen raptors.

The CIC crew watched nervously as the ship launched about a dozen fighters. Most formed a defensive formation around their mother ship.

One made a charge for the station.

**T + 00:08:00**

**Caprica Airspace**

The blue Avalon ended its re-entry into Caprica's atmosphere faster than its pilot was used to. Having left the vipers in space to be handled by the 302s, he set the fighter's system to autopilot as the capital city came into view.

"Alright A.D.A.M., it's all in your hands from here." Jon said as he prepared himself for what was about to happen.

"_Understood, good luck sir." _The AI stated. Flying over the downtown core of Caprica City at just over a thousand feet, some of the buildings where higher than the craft. Ejecting right on cue, he instantly pulled his chute once he was out of the craft. It took only a few moments for his parachute to deploy and for him to reach the ground.

In less than three seconds from his landing in the middle of the street, he had his chute off and his helmet on the ground.

"Hey, what the frak do you think you're doing?" A truck driver yelled, honking at him to move. "Get out of the road you… you…"

The driver trailed off as he say Jon take off his uniform. Underneath he wore a suit which alone would have stricken fear had the Capricans known the history of it. An all-black body suit save for a blue sash running across from the shoulder to the hip, be bore the uniform of his former unit from before his transfer to space.

The uniform of Strike Force.

Many of the bystanders watched with curiosity as the young man turned his attention towards the now quiet truck. Eyes glowing a bright blue, the truck's engine seemed to be crushed by some unseen force.

Without hesitation the civilians started to run in every direction, many screaming.

Paying them no attention, Jon started levitating himself a few meters above the road and making for Quorum Tower.

**T +00:10:00**

**Tauron Staging Area**

Admiral Bernard had received three raptors from three worlds all telling him that an attack was taking place. Two had mentioned a lone ship attack while the last was of an invasion of a station. With the information available to him, he made the choice to send troop transports to Scorpia while sending a token force to Caprica and Picon. He also ordered raptors sent to the other colonies to make contact with their local fleets. If this was a prelude to a full invasion he needed to be ready.

Unfortunately for him both the goals and the resources of his enemy where radcially different from what he believed they were.

**T +00:12:00**

**Scorpia Shipyard**

In one of the mess halls colonial soldiers and crewmen had managed to partially barricade the entries and making a makeshift fort. Though valiantly defended, the defence was all that remained of colonial control over the station, and it only took a few canisters of tear gas and a few soldiers with zats to crush what little remained.

It took several moments for the different units to confirm having cleared out each area. Jonathan O'neill was mildly impressed, having worked in an SG unit for so long he wasn't used to space based operations using thousands of men. It had gone much smoother then he had expected.

"SG-14 to Atlantis, the nest is clear, bring on the golden eggs."

"_Atlantis copies, golden eggs inbound."_

Golden eggs was the code name for the modules which made up the city shield being used in the operation. Originally intended for the city of Berlin, it was the latest in a series of human made shields based on those of Atlantis made to be a defence on Earth. Originally cued for the German capital, they had been commandeered it for the mission at hand. A month's delay for the city's defence was deemed acceptable for the mission at hand.

Around the massive station, the modules and personnel to handle them appeared.

The hard part was about to begin.

**T +00:14:00**

**Picon Command Station**

The pink craft took another strafing run against the station. The anti-fighter batteries had been the first to go, a logical choice in Bastiel's opinion. With no more of such targets, however, that left more vulnerable systems in the craft's crosshairs. Communications where already down, making coordination of the station's fleet useless. There wasn't much of a fleet left though, with the dradis only showing one battlestar and a crippled but still living cruiser being the only ships left, the other four ships having gone into the night.

The vipers and raptors where in disarray. While they outnumbered the enemy by forty to one, the 302s had used their missiles to wipe out a fifth of them from far beyond the range of any colonial weapons. With the command station going quiet and most of their fleet in pieces, it unit cohesion was already on the brink of collapse.

Complete cohesion was lost when the lone battlestar remaining was ripped apart without warning in a nuclear inferno. Had the colonials known about Earth's teleportation technology or the effects naquadah has on explosives they would have probably understood what happened, but in their ignorance it merely looked like a spontaneous act at the worst place and time.

The squad and wing commanders tried in vain to keep the newer recruits in line. Some broke off and charge the 302s, knowing full well they had depleted their missiles in the first attack on their ranks. Some charged the 304 in a vain attempt damage the ship. Some tried to turn back and defend the station from the craft harassing it. Most simply had no idea what to do, the comm. channels flooded with contradictory orders and no clear sign of who was in charge.

What saved them from complete anarchy was the appearance of three battlestar groups. Three massive ships and a dozen escort craft with enough vipers to double the number in the battle, it wasn't a surprise to see the invading craft start to move.

The ten 302s returned to their home, the 304 moving to keep as much distance as possible from the ships and itself as possible without straying too far from the station.

**T +00:15:00**

**Caprica Orbit**

The lone 304 in orbit took out a battlestar with efficiency. The ship had jumped in right on top of it, just within five kilometers with its batteries blazing. Peppered by kinetic batteries for a few moments, the shields held firm as the rate of replenishment exceeded the rate of deplession.

The battlestar's crew didn't have time to realize what had happened, the close range plasma beams vaporizing all but the nose and engines of the ship. With the sight of their comrade being obliterated with such ease, the other warships in orbit chose to regroup in a defensive line between the planet and the ship instead of intercepting.

Thankfully for them their loses where filled with the appearance of five battlestars above the planet.

**T +00:16:00**

**Scorpia orbit**

The marines had been itching for a fight. With the mission to occupy Earth cancelled due to the failure to achieve space supremacy, many had been upset that they had to go through the whole song and dance only to be send home a defeated army without having even tried to set foot on the planet. With the general resentment many had towards space-com, it was greeted with great joy to hear that Scorpia Shipyard, the largest military shipyard in the colonies, had called needing help with some boarding action.

This was what they were made for, what real men did in the military. Not some officer on his bridge, but the non-com in combat gear charging headlong into the fire of battle.

This was also not something they would ever get a chance to see, as their troop transports immediately broke formation and made a run for it at maximum speed upon jumping into the system. Without space-com escorts, the troop transports would have been fish in a barrel to the seven ships floating by the shipyard. One of them was truly massive, having a mass which made even a warstar look like nothing in comparison, comparable only to an anchorage in size.

But a ship it clearly was, and away from it is where the troop transports needed to stay.

Once again the marines had been forced to flee without a fight due.

**T + 00:18:00**

**Picon Command Station**

Around the station, the battlestars and the 304 had entered a game of cat and mouse, with the colonials trying to get the jump on the Earth ship and the 304 trying to avoid them. With its superior speed and maneuverability, the 304 had the advantage in keeping it distance, but with superior numbers the fleet had it became tricky to avoid the swarms of vipers and the ships on approach from different vectors.

Mary, in her pink Avalon, didn't have much left in terms of stationary targets. With most of what looked important on the station's surface broken, she turned her attention to the dozen vipers on her tail that she had been ignoring.

Pulling a turn which would have killed her had it not been for inertia dampeners , one of the viper pilots made the mistake of thinking allowed that she was a Cylon.

With a weapon which wasn't anywhere close to being depleted, armor which was neigh impervious to their cannons, and now fear of their most dreaded enemy within the Colonial ranks, the vipers where easy picking.

**T +00:20:00**

**Caprica City**

Jon flipped a police car which had a driver who had the bright idea to try and ram him.

He was finally reaching Quorum Tower, a police blockade made of cars and trucks lined up end to end standing between him and his target. He was starting to get tired, and was aware that his nose was starting to bleed from overexertion.

For several moments there was a tense silence. No one seemed to move as he stared at the police who were using the lined up cars as a makeshift barricade. The distance between the line and Jon was a good several hundred meters. Some civilians peppered the area, not having had time to properly find a hiding place.

But of all the background noise Jon could hear only two things. The cries of a little girl nearby, and the engines of a raptor.

What transpired next would become remembered in the Cyrannus system as the event which started the Heroic Age.

Caught on tape by one of the reporters behind the line of police, a raptor dove above the street towards Jon, launching its payload which had been designed for taking our fighters.

On pure instinct, Jon dove towards the girl who had lost her way, holding her close as he used his body to protect her. Manifesting his abilities into a dense but small bubble around them, the missiles hit their mark. It was loud, they shuck violently, but when the dust cleared they survived.

The little girl had yelled in surprise at Jon action, but her cries of fear where drowned out by the sound of the strike. When the dust had settled she found herself in a small circle of still clean sidewalk surrounded by broken road, cars and the partially pulverized side of a store.

Before she could proses what had happened, she felt herself being lifted up into someone's arms. The young man holding her had an Aquarian look to him, but his eyes glowed a light blue. Around both of them was an odd black mist, one which quickly disappeared. The feel of the mist and the man who held her was odd, warm and comforting.

"_Be good young one." _Jon said, not realizing he was switched to ancient. The dead tongue didn't hamper the girl's ability to understand what he said though.

Jon started to walk towards the line of police with a bluff. With the girl held protectively in his arms, he could manifest just enough of his power to keep his eyes glowing. He didn't have enough power to make another shield, if one of the police took a shot it would hit and treat him like any normal person being shot.

But as he walked towards the line, they seemed to buy the bluff. As he reached the line of cars, he spotted a man who looked to be in command. He wasn't absolutely sure that he was in command, but the man was older and his uniform seemed more decorated then the others.

He slowly walked towards the man, trying his best to show no hostile intent. This despite the actions he had committed up to that point in the capital city. He and the older man stared at each other for several long moments, nothing but a police cruiser standing between them.

The moment seemed to pass, as the older man simply nodded. Jon slowly walked around the police car and offered the young girl to the authority. The man wordlessly accepted the girl, using his hand to signal his men to stand down. The police who had their guns trailed on him stood down, looking at the invader with a mix of fear and contempt.

"_Remember young one, be good." _Jon said in ancient again.

The girl nodded her head. _"I will mister."_

Jon smiled at the reply. This world would be in good hands in a few years.

"_Emile Fayolle to captain Haida, it's done."_ The ship in orbit informed him.

He tapped his earpiece. "Understood, I'll tell you when it's safe to transport. A.D.A.M., do a flyby."

A few moments later the blue Avalon flew low above the area, distracting most of those on the ground. Jon took the distraction to quickly hide behind a truck.

"Alright, one to beam up."

**T + 00:25:00**

**Scorpia Shipyard**

"Alright that's the last one. McKay to Atlantis, we're about to start the system now right… now." With the flip of a switch, the city shield activated around the shipyard. "Alright Shepard, take us out of here."

"_Yeah yeah, Rodney, I remember the briefing."_

Atlantis and the six 304s took position beside the shipyard, moving in close enough that the shield on the station and those of the ships where making contact. In a single motion, the fleet opened a massive window to hyperspace, one more then large enough to take them and the station with ease.

In a moment, it was over. The ships and the station where on their way to Earth. Operation Grand Heist was a success.

**T +00:27:00**

**Picon Orbit**

"Avalon 3 on approach, I have the ball"

"_Roger Avalon, you have the ball"_

With the mission accomplished, the recall order had been sent out to the forces intended to distract the Colonials. Mary had been the last to follow, being a much farther distance from her mother ship than any other fighter in the field.

"Alright I'm on my way, ETA to landing 30 secon…" Her voice trailed off as the Alexandria was consumed by fire. On her sensor system she detected four battlestars, eighteen cruisers and the remains of a battlestar where the Alexandria had once been.

The Colonial ambush had worked, though clearly not as they had intended.

With the fleet having started for home already, Mary did the only thing she could. She turned around and zipped towards the planet bellow. Her fighter had a week of provisions and a subspace beacon, she could do this.

She could survive behind enemy lines until rescue came.


	7. Chapter 7

**Titan attacks Caprica!**

That was the headline of the paper on Adar's desk. Not even a full standard day after the attack the fallout of the attack was only beginning to appear. The official story was that the Earthers had attacked both Picon and Caprica in an attempt to both destroy the head of the military and the government in a single shot. No mention had been made about Scorpia, and if any questions were asked they were to be deflected in a means which implied the station having been moved by the Aschen, but without explicitly stating it as such.

Adar turned his attention to the man sitting on the other side of his desk.

"So about that technology you promised."

"Unfortunately mister president." Borren stated flatly. "The issue has never been our unwillingness to uplift your people; the issue has been the ability to do so. When my people lost our home world we lost the infrastructure which built and maintained our technology. What we have cannot be replaced if it is lost. To bring your worlds to the level we and the Earthers are at, it will take years, maybe longer, of uninterrupted modernization. We aren't just trying to teach your people how to build something, we're trying to teach you how the fundamentals behind how to build equipment which itself is only used to build technology ahead of it. It is like teaching a farmer to go from using manual labour to building a fusion powered automated harvester. There are many steps in between."

"Alright, and did you with your superior technology find a way to maximize the speed we manage to do all this?"

"We have several plans, the shortest of which is five years. The more pragmatic one…"

"What's that plan?"

"Which plan?"

"The five year plan."

"Oh." Borren paused for a moment. "It was one which was deemed 'possible but not viable in the long term'."

"And what exactly was it?"

"The simplified version was that the colonies would have all possible resources put towards the development of new technology. The problem was that, even ignoring the crippling debt and high unemployment levels, it left the colonies relatively undefended as the remaining shipyards would be dedicated to upgrading existing ships instead of building new ones. This wouldn't have been as large of an issue without the loss of Scorpia shipyard; however with it gone the options are greatly limited. The most pragmatic plan we have will take an estimated eight years to bring your weapons technology to the same level as our own."

"Eight years?" Adar stated in defeat. Borren said nothing as the president sank into his seat. "Eight years."

**Queenstown, Picon**

**Train station at the outskirts of the capital**

Above the crowded station platform a squad of vipers flew low.

"That's the third time since this morning." One of the older women stated. "Haven't seen anything like that since the war."

"It's the fifth I've seen. Before this whole thing started we'd be lucky to have one of these a week." A man stated.

"I don't know what they hope to find, it's obvious they didn't land anywhere near hear."

"I heard the thing crashed and they want to find the parts so we can use the tech for ourselves."

"I heard that they destroyed a whole fleet in orbit."

"Which 'they'? The Earthers or us?"

"Both."

"I heard…"

"I heard…"

"I heard…"

"I heard it was a Cylon." There was an instant quiet over the crowd. The general attention went towards the soldier who had said that. "Pulled maneuvers which would have torn a human apart."

"If the Earthers where aligned with the Cylons, wouldn't they have just nuked us?" A girl asked from a few meters away. "How do we know they didn't have a titan in there? After all, we saw what one could do on Caprica, what makes you think only one god has chosen to fight with them?"

"Typical Gemenese, thinking everything has to be about the gods. Girly, that thing was at best a minion of Hades."

"Minion or not, he got on the governments doorstep on its own. I'd hate to see what the pantheon would do to us."

"Ha, and why would one of the better gods be anger at us?" The solder asked.

"Well, we did try to conquer them."

The soldier said nothing, but gave the girl a death glare which almost made her drop the bag in her hands. She seemed a frail girl, still naïve to the realities of the world. When the train arrived, she made sure to get on a different car then the soldier.

"Don't worry, he's probably just scared." A slightly older boy said. "We're all scared after all. He didn't shake you up too badly, did he?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I'm fine. My father was a pretty pessimistic Caprican."

"I see. You look Gemenese though."

"My mother. I take after her looks, or so I'm told." She took a seat next to the boy. "Thanks for trying to help. It's not easy being _Foritza _on Picon."

"_Ik mortus aliutza, betupsi_." The boy stated with a slight grin.

"That's very kind of you to say, mister…?" The girl asked with a blush.

"My name's Peter. You?"

The girl gave him a wide smile.

"I'm Mary."

**Battlestar Galactica**

**Port Hanger Bay**

Adama wasn't sure what to make of it. The object, or objects to be more precise, seemed to be some sort of refined but different tylium. It had the same molecular makeup, and whatever it was made of was highly refined. But to refine tylium to such a degree, it was impossible. It had been tried, it had failed. It was deemed impossible by the laws of physics as they knew it.

And yet here it was. Tylium so highly refined that it became a super hard conductive material. He wondered what such material would do to explosives as a force multiplier, and then shut that horrifying thought away.

"Chief, what am I looking at?"

"A puzzle sir."

"A puzzle?"

"Yes sir, a ten thousand piece, thirty-six ton puzzle." The chief took a step back from the pile that had been spread out. "I can put it back together, but it'll take time."

"Take as many men as you can spear."

"Sir I'd need to do this on my own." Adama thought about it for a moment. It was a puzzle, and it could be done faster with more people, but if something was misplaced by one that another person needed. "Alright. Though keep someone near for moving things. Thirty-six tons isn't going to move itself."

"Yes sir."

With Adama walking off, the Chief got to work putting together the pieces.

**Office of Director O'neill**

**The Peak**

"Sir, we have to go after her. We can't just leave her back there."

Jack looked up from the paperwork on his desk. "Yes Haida, just walk into my office. How about you take your Avalon for a joyride while you're at it?"

"Sorry sir, it's just… I can't stand by and leave one of my team behind enemy lines."

"I've seen your file; I know how far you're willing to go to save one of your own."

"Sir I would like to remind you I didn't violate any orders or regulations when I was in…"

"Let me finish."

"Sir."

"Alright. Captain Jon Haida, when I was your age I hadn't even considered entering the military yet. You've fought aliens and gone to another dimension to recover a lost member of your team. And Mary was there with you the whole time. I think she can handle herself while we get ready to mount a rescue."

Jon shifted slightly, unsure of how he felt about the comment. "You have a point sir, but I'd like to point out we didn't exactly win that fight."

"You may know that, I may know that, but the world doesn't need to know that. Now if you'll excuse me I have here transfer orders that I think pertains to you."

Jack handed a paper to Jon, who took a moment to read over it.

"I think that will work, sir."

"Alright, now get out of my office. I got the PoW camp's commander on my ass for giving him thirty thousand new prisoners when all they were prepared for was an extra twenty thousand. Do you have any idea how much that man loves the sound of his own voice?" Jon didn't answer, just leaving for one of the transporter rooms.

**Free Sagittaron Party Headquarters**

**Tawa, Sagittaron**

Three men sat in the large office. It was late in the night, most of the workers in the district having long gone home. The only light the room had was coming from a desk lamp. The center of attention was a vial, its purple liquid more valuable in their minds then anything they had ever seen.

"The test results came back, there's no question about it." One of the three stated. Tom leaned back in his seat.

"This, this could take down everything. Adar, the government, the Aschen, this could tear everything apart." Tom thought for a moment before he continued. "Gentlemen, we are about to make history, here and now is a moment which our system will feel the effect of for generations."

"Quit the gravitas Tommy, we all know this is big. What we have to do is go public and…."

"No." Tom interrupted. "We need to do something first. Before we go public we have something else to accomplish."

"And that would be?"

"Secession."

There was a long period of silence.

"Secession?"

"Yes, secession." Tom repeated. "The whole planet, and maybe even Scorpia and Libran."

"The whole of Helios Gamma? Are you mad?"

"Maybe, but if we can manage to secede successfully we can use the way the economy is set up to pressure both worlds into joining us. Add in an appeal to order and stability and the Librans are virtually guaranteed to join without hesitation."

"And how exactly are we supposed to succeed? The moment we declare independence a fleet from Tauron would be on our roof 'restoring order'."

Tom straightened himself, taking a moment to think.

"I'll talk to the Earthers about it the next time they come by. They may be able to help us more than they already have."

"I don't know Tom." The man who hasn't spoken us stated. "We're already technically conspiring to commit treason. Asking for their help, in light of recent events, may turn off a lot of people if it were to be learned."

"Then we won't tell anyone about it." Tom stated flatly.

**Cylon Colony, high above "New Aschen"**

**New Aschen nebula**

Administrator Morit loved his new assignment. With a hundred basestars in orbit, and several times that number of ships dedicated to mining, refining, producing or communications, there was always something which needed his attention.

"Sir, we have a message from the surface." One of the eights informed him.

"Put it up."

On the screen, the unfocused image of a six appeared.

"_Sir, the ar-a seem- to have mu-h ha—her climate then or-ally believed, the - seems to be better than exp—ected howev-."_

"The requirements where for fertile land and suitable terrain for habitation, is that an issue?"

"_Ye- -ir it is."_

"Good, then start the settlement. This system is the fallback point for the whole of the Aschen, if need be I want us to be able to house all our people here in only one cycle. Do I make myself clear?"

"_-es sir."_

"Good. And get a few centurions to get the new comm. tower up. The static is a great annoyance. Over and out."

Fallback was a simple mission, to use the Cylon assets which had been assembled to create a viable colony for the Aschen people. With how things where playing out, within a cycle the settlement would be capable of handling the civilian Aschen population, with basic industry. By the second cycle expansion of the settlement would outpace the ability of the reproduction chambers to grow the population, allowing for more resources to be put towards infrastructure and advancing the Aschen tech base. By the fifth cycle it was expected that basic plasma weapons and shield technology could be produced, with the return to their true technology being finished by the twelfth cycle.

The new society of the Aschen people was taking shape, with the Aschen at the top, the humanoid Cylons on the center, and centurions at the bottom.

New Aschen had been a logical location for this new society. Found while the migrant fleet searched for a new home, it would have been settled already had the Cylons not been found before a proper plan was set. With the discovery of the machine race and subsequently the humans who built them, the planet was left on its own, the communications and sensor problems the nebula produced being considered too much of a hassle.

Now, with the destruction of Earth and pacification of the Colonials in doubt, the Cylons had been moved from producing more of themselves and refined ores to putting the ores to use.

It wasn't the most ideal situation, moving the planed center of the new Aschen Confederation from a system of a dozen habitable worlds to one which held one which barely held life, but the plan was a fallback after all. There was still a possibility it wouldn't be necessary, after all.

**Area 51**

**New Mexico**

The facility wasn't what it used to be. Back in the height of cold war and in the days when the stargate was still secret, the base was filled with funds to build new toys like the world was ending. Usually because it was. But with the creation of new organizations around the globe coupled with the reformation of existing ones, the old air base was a shadow of its former self. Where once dozens, sometimes hundreds of projects where being worked on, now only had three. Reverse engineering of an Ori beam weapon, a colonial jump drive, and the reconstruction of a monstrosity the ground pounders used. It was important work, but it wasn't the life-or-death development the base had once been responsible for, most of those projects being handled in Atlantis.

With all this in mind, it was with great annoyance the base's commander was informed that someone many considered an embodiment of the changing times would be coming on his base. Miracles, mutants, gifted, he didn't care what people called them, they were abominations in his mind.

Which was why he was happy to learn that the boy seemed to want to take the only one on his base off his hands.

"So let me get this straight, you want to take her off my hands for some mission half way across the galaxy?"

"Yes sir, that's the order straight from Director O'neill himself." Jon replied.

"And this will be for how long?"

"A few days, a week at the most. Long before the reactivation tests are set to occure."

The commander sighed quietly. It wasn't the 'get out and stay out' he was hoping for, but some time was better than none. Without hesitation he signed off the transfer papers.

Jon took the papers, saluted, and was dismissed. The commander waited for the boy to be gone before he spoke again.

"Freak."

Jon didn't hear him, his legs taking him to the base's residential area. It took a good few minutes to find his destination, but he eventually reached it.

The location was a small one story house. It seemed more like an apartment missing neighbours then a house, but it was definitely the one he was looking for.

He spent a long moment staring at the door, nervous about proceeding. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the door. A moment before he knocked on the door, it opened. Seeing empty space where a person should have been, Jon looked down to see red eyes looking back.

"Hello Mei, is your sister home?"

The little girl nodded her head in affirmation. Her expression was blanc, which creped Jon out slightly.

"Alright, and where is she? I need to talk to her, it's important."

The girl didn't say anything, only walking deeper into the house and knocking on one of the doors.

"Yes what is it Mei, I'm in the mid…" The girl who came out of the bathroom stopped as she spotted the visitor. Garnering only a towel, her red eyes looked over the boy for a few long seconds.

"You're letting out the cold air." She finally said, heading to her room.

"Hello to you too." Jon stated sarcastically as he closed the entrance door. Setting himself down on the couch, Mei returned in front of him with two juice boxes in hand, one outstretched towards him.

"Thanks Mei, it's ungodly hot in this part of the world." After accepting the drink, there was a long silence as neither spoke. The boy sat in silence as the young girl watched the television with fascination. The program was a broadcast of super sentai, the girl clearly a fan of the show or at least interested enough to sit down and watch it. It wasn't until both where done their boxes that the silence was broken.

"I assume you're here on business. You would have called if it was anything else." The girl said as she entered the living room, now wearing a set of civilian clothes.

"I could have made this threw a call, but I wanted to be here in person for it." Jon explained. "It's about Mary; she's trapped behind enemy lines."

"I don't see how that requires me, or you for that matter. She can handle herself until a ship transports her away." The girl took a seat between the boy and the young girl.

"It's not that simple. If she followed protocol, and given it's Mary that's a pretty big 'if', then he would be in a completely different continent by now then her Avalon, which means far away from her fighter's beacon." As he spoke, Jon unconsciously placed his arm around the girl's shoulder after she started to lean on him. "It's a simple mission, shouldn't take more than a few days. Just you, me, an SG team and a 304 for the trip."

"I assume my agreeing is only a formality and that it's an order."

"It is."

The girl nestled closer to the boy.

"There is always another mission for us." The girl lamented.

"Maybe, but that's our lot in life." Jon stopped for a moment as he kissed the girl's forehead. "We will be leaving tomorrow at 0500 standard time."

"You think I may be able to get some time off after this mission?"

"I hope so Rei, I hope so."

Neither spoke for some time after that, the only noise coming from the television.

**Cavern on Kotari Island**

**Picon**

"Why the hell would the thing be here?" Fredric asked. The cave was fairly large, its mouth a good twenty meters wide. The angle of the hole going into the ground was pretty low, meaning that if the craft had landed there it would have been going much slower than an aircraft its size should.

"General order, any hole, nook or cranny large enough to hid in needs to be searched, no exception." Pat replied. He turned on a flashlight and started to make his way into the cave, Fredric close behind.

"Ah man, it'd going to take a week to get the bat shit smell out of these boots."

"Shut up Fred, this ain't any worst then that time we were in Aquaria."

"Yeah, only because we were knee high in a different animal's shit, and it was freezing. I tell you I'm never going to that ice planet ever again. How anyone can call that planet home is beyond me."

"Well not many do, we have more people in Picon Station then that whole planet."

"Yeah, well it's not like…" Fredric stopped as a loud clacking sound echoed through the cave. "Ah son of a Virgo street walker."

"You alright? What the hell did you hit?"

The two looked up; pointing their flashlights to see what had been hit. What they found was pink painted metal. The area of impact was a low hanging part of the fuselage.

"How the hell did we miss that?"

"You mean how did YOU miss that, I was following you."

"Wait, when we came in here I was the one following you."

"Yeah, well it doesn't matter. I'll stay here in case the pilot's still around, you go back and radio base. If we're lucky this could mean a promotion."

Before Fred could do as ordered, the aircraft's engines roared to life. It took only a few moments for the craft to leave the cave, flying low above the Picon countryside and later ocean to avoid radar detection.

By the time the two soldiers had picked themselves up, cleaned off enough bat droppings to find the buttons on their radios and contact their base, the Avalon had already found a new hole to hide in. Patrols were diverted to the south east continent, but for now the aircraft was hidden.

**Planet Horathis**

**Border world between the Free Jaffa Nation and Trade Coalition**

The space around the planet was a scene of tension. The planet, a FJN world, had little in way of resources that where valued that other worlds didn't have. What it did have, however, was an Al'Kesh shipyard. Both sides wanted it, the few shipyards of its kind left after the Jaffa rebellion to be left intact. Its lose would have been irreplaceable to both nations, neither having the knowledge base to fix any damage done.

Both sides had over a dozen Ha'tak in orbit ready in case anything happened. On the surface the local governor was negotiating with both sides, trying his best to keep his majority human world out of the line of fire.

Long before the negotiations came to an end, an Al'Kesh that seemed to be in the Trade Coalition's ranks fired on a Free Jaffa Ha'tak. Before anyone realized what was happening eighteen Ha'tak lay in ruin, the Free Jaffa on the retreat and the Trade Coalition gaining a new world.

The mission was a partial success. Both the Free Jaffa and he Trade Coalition had lost most of their fleets, relations where worst then before, but unlike what would have been the typical human reaction no war began.

The Lucian agent didn't care either way, he was paid to get them to fight each other, not to start a war. He only hoped his benefactors would hire him again, the Tok'Ra paid much better than most after all.

The mercenary checked his contracts. His next job was to steal an FTL device from the Cyrannus system for the Free Jaffa. There was a slight risk they may shoot him on sight, but the pay was too much to skip on, and it was just a job hazard.

Getting Jaffa to kill each other, stealing from primitives, working for both sides in a conflict that hadn't started.

Typical day in the life of a Lucian mercenary.

"_Earlier today the HMCS Bonaventure left Nova Scotia, returning to operations after taking damage earlier this month when repelling an alien invasion. No mention has been made as to the ships current or future missions; however it is widely believed that it will partake in missions against the Colonials. The Colonials, or Colonies of Kobol as they are officially known, where responsible for the attempted invasion on Earth which damaged the Bonaventure. Their invasion marks the third attempt this year by aliens to invade our world, the other two having landed in New Mexico and Japan before being repelled. Due to the recent increase in both frequency and intensity of invasion attempts, the Council has approved of a twenty percent budget increase to both planetary and interplanetary forces, and is currently in talks to extend the highschool basic training program from four to eight weeks globally." _–CTV National News

Author's Notes: well, that chapter took a few more rewrites then I hoped it would, and I'm still not perfectly happy with what I got. But it is what it is, next chapter involves the rescue mission for Mary and a few other things.


	8. Chapter 8

**President's office**

**Caprica City, Caprica**

"How many are out there?" Adar asked his head of security.

"Over fifty thousand. I can have them dispraised if…"

"No, that would only encourage them. Plus it's not like there's anything I can't do from this office."

The president's chief advisor looked over some papers. "This isn't good sir, poll numbers have support falling at an alarming rate."

"I wasn't planning on running for a third term anyway."

There was a long silence.

"Sir." His advisor spoke up. "The two term tradition is only that, tradition. There's nothing stopping you from running for a third term."

"Mac, I don't think you fully understand the position I'm in." Adar replied. He took out a cup of a clear liquid which was most certainly not water. "On to the real matter for why you're here. Where is the girl?"

"Gemenon. The instant she set foot on the planet the Athenian Sorority took her to the temple. There's already news reports claiming that people as far as Canceron are traveling to the Temple to see the girl."

Adar got up from his seat and looked out into the sky beyond the window. Up above Gemenon dominated the view, dwarfing anything else in the sky as it always did.

"Dame cultists. Next thing you know they'll be worshipping her as a god."

There was an awkward silence as the assistance shifted his weight.

"Oh don't tell me it's happening, that's the last thing we need from this."

"Well sir, one of the sisters has claimed her eyes have started to occasionally glow a bright blue, just like the Titan. They're officially calling the girl something along the lines of 'the chose one', or 'the blessed one'. Hard to tell given the context and that they're speaking old Gemenis."

Adar sighed. He'd been doing that a lot lately. "Gemenon is lost in the next election. Anyone in the cabinet fooling enough to run is going to have quite the uphill battle."

It had since the beginning of his second term been an open question as to whether or not Adar would run for a third term. The law on the matter was simple: an election is an election, and so long as someone qualifies they may run. The reason it was a real question, however, was that there was an unspoken tradition of only having two terms. The precedent had been set by the first president of the colonies, who resigned after the armistice was signed, who enjoyed not one full month of peace before his time came to an end. Adar, for his part, had been given a role of the dice that came around only once a millennium. First contact with a band of humans who had split off from the thirteenth tribe, ones who brought with them great gifts of technology far beyond what they were capable of. With the Cylons nowhere to be seen and a new day on the horizon, it was believed by many that the wave of popularity would be not only enough to give Adar a third term, but even possibly a fourth one.

The issue of the Earth being genocidal maniacs willing to destroy life by the planet load didn't damper things. After all, they were going to win. With the gods on their side and the Aschen as their instruments, it was an assured victory.

Then Adar discovered a secret, one he knew would have him branded a traitor of all mankind. Or at least the part he cared about.

The miracle treatment the Aschen gave to double lifespans caused sterility.

He hadn't believed it at first, but after his first source of the information went silent and another one came forward, he had no doubts. Five times now someone had come to him with conclusive evidence proving it beyond a possibility of doubt. The first didn't have a chance, the second and third where true believers with just as little chance. The fourth hadn't had time to go into hiding. The last was at Ceti Anchorage, far beyond the range of accidents. He was a smart man, but like Adar he was a coward.

And a coward Adar was. He was already going into that goodnight, even if he stopped drinking and even with the life extension treatment he knew he wouldn't live to see the end of these days. He had died in a sense on the day he learned of the hand his people had been dealt. He was already on borrowed time, and he knew one wrong step would have the Aschen fall upon Caprica faster than the fleet had tried to do so on Earth.

After a long minute of thought, he spoke once more.

"Get out."

The two did as told and left. Adar looked at his desk with the eyes of a man on death row. He took his seat and started to write.

He would have a lot of writing to do today.

**Temple of Athena, Gemenon**

**Throne room**

The Athenian Sorority was by far the oldest religious order to still see the light of day in the twelve colonies. Dating back to a sect of Gemenon religious reformists centered around the throne. It wasn't nearly as spectacular as the name implied. A blue seat on a small platform was more accurate a description, but it was one of the oldest and holiest relics of Kobol. The throne was constantly watched but rarely touched, only the senior most members of the order where permitted a single opportunity to take a seat. The rest of the time the four warriors constantly on guard prevented unsavory eyes from laying sight to the seat, let alone touch it.

The Warriors of Ares had been for centuries the only non-Sorority members to pay eyes on the throne, their duty to defend but never touch it. Unlike the Sorority itself, the Warriors had kept itself exclusive to its world of origin. While a woman of any world could join the sisters, the brother warriors was only open to the Librans.

As the best the Librans had to offer, it was no surprise they were visibly shaking over the internal conflict of seeing a young girl no older than eleven was brought into the room, escorted by two sisters no less.

"What is the meaning of this?" one of the brothers demanded.

"Order from the high priestess herself, the blessed one is to go through the ritual of the throne." One of the sisters explained.

"This does not bode well with me." One of the other brothers spoke up. "She is far too young. Never has one who could still bear children sat on the throne, now you ask us to look away as one who is too young to bear offspring defiles one of the few gifts of the gods we have left?"

"Know your place, brother." The sister who had remained quiet snapped. "The Matriarch herself ordered this, and it is her who your patriarch answers too. Now move aside, the ritual shall take but a moment."

The four warriors hesitated for a moment, but the oldest moved to the side. It was an unspoken order, one the remaining three followed without hesitation.

"Very well, you may conduct the ritual; however let it be known that any calamity which could anger the gods here is the responsibility of the Sorority, one we Warriors shall not be your shield against." The oldest declared.

The sisters only rolled their eyes. The Warriors fulfilled their roles well, but any change or action out of the ordinary always brought protest. It had been hard for them to accept Sagittaron women into the order, to say nothing of the colonies which had not split off from Gemenon countless generations ago. Their protest was a standard one, but it always ended with the Sorority getting its way. After all, the Warriors of Ares kept order, and order was whatever the Sorority said it was. The fact they both controlled the money and had plenty of sisters who took a liking to the brothers helped as well.

The little girl, Catherine, didn't fully understand what was happening around her. Ever since the odd boy had saved her everyone acted so differently. Doctors had given her weird scans which she had only ever seen in movies, a lot of people with cameras where filming or taking pictures of her, and she had been brought by her mother to the Temple of Athena, a place she had only ever seen pictures of.

Now she was being seated in some odd blue seat. One of the women was speaking an odd tongue, one which sounded old to her young years, not like the ones most people spoke. The women had started to chant some old rituals, ad though Catherine tried to pay attention her young mind wondered. Leaning back, the adults in the room gasped as the chair leaned back and started became luminant.

"Get the Matriarch and the Patriarch here now!" One of the sisters ordered the closest Warrior.

While the adults panicked, Catherine was mesmerized by what she saw. It was a holographic map of the galaxy, with three systems marked, each with a seven symbol code. Catherine extended her right hand towards one, and the hologram focused on it. The world dominated the holographic image, a world of mostly water, a single moon and seemingly two massive consonant with many smaller ones.

"_Terra, deductavum oh Sau vi Ori."_

She then focused on the second system, this one a mostly land world.

"_Sancus renin Kohbal."_

She then concentrated on the third system, the hologram being that of four stars orbiting around each other, twelve worlds emphasised.

"_Hic."_

As each of the three systems was shown, a lone symbol was clearly shown next to each system.

"Sister Toris, what does it mean?"

"I could very well be wrong, but if this world truly is Terra, ancient Kobolian for Earth, and this one Kohbal, which I think we all know what that is, then I think we have a star chart to find our old homeworld. Kobol."

"_Nou omnes do hic, Terra." _ Catherine said, focusing the hologram on Earth. She watched the image with the awe and wonder only a child could.

**Sietro Residence**

**Picon**

Mary had hit the jackpot. A young man whose parents were out of town for months on end due to work, and rich to boot. For the past few days, Peter had let her stay in the guest room. Her cover had been that of the wandering Gemenon, an old practice that was outside the mainstream where the child who came too late to inherit their family's land went off into parts unknown to find a new land to make a family. It had been the common practice before interplanetary travel had become normal, but it had died out during industrialization. Now the few who did it tended to be from rural families who left for other colonies, usually Caprica.

Over the past few days she had been pretending to be doing rituals during the day while Peter was doing his studies, but the truth was that she was gathering intelligence. What passed for the internet on Picon had been an oddity to her, and just as difficult to get anything out of as it was odd. Where the internet on Earth had large areas dedicated to news, retail and other everyday uses, here it seemed to be almost exclusively used by business and scientific institutes. It was a small miracle she was able to find her way into it at all, but despite her efforts she hadn't been able to get anything. Her real success seemed to come from the television, which was more comparable to those back home. Two dedicated news channels, a dozen specialty channels and a half dozen generalist ones. Had she not known better, she would have thought it was a network from one of the small countries in Europe instead of a world of hundreds of millions, but it was something she could access so she had no right to complain.

"_It's clear that thing wasn't a Titan." _One of the panelists on the news stated. _"The Titans where destroyed by the Gods during their ascension."_

"_Well if it wasn't a Titan what was it?" _Another asked.

"_Wait a minute, that isn't true. Some of the Titans joined the Gods during the battle for the heavens." _A third chimed in.

"Scary isn't it?" Peter's voice made Mary jump.

"Oh, I didn't know you were done for the day." She turned her attention back to the television. "It is scary though. I mean think about it, we may have started a fight with the Gods themselves."

"I wouldn't go that far, I think those bastards are just from Hades." Peter turned off the TV and sat himself next to Mary. "You know, things have been changing a lot lately."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well just think about it, what's out there? Until a few years ago we didn't know there was anything out there. Now we've got the Aschen and the Earthers to deal with, and what else could possibly be out there?"

"You have no idea." Mary said under her breath.

"What was that?"

"I said I have no idea." She gave him a fake smile at the comment.

"You know" Peter paused to place his hand over Mary's. "In times like people usually go to those closet to them for comfort."

"You know it's almost time to eat, I should really get something started." Mary said far more quickly then she should have. Of course it was all an act, in reality she couldn't care less about how far things got, but she had a character to play.

Peter sat in silence for a few moments as he wondered what he should do. He would have turned on the TV, but a sound from Mary's bag got his attention. He hesitated for a moment, but when the sound repeated itself he walked up to the bag and opened it. What he saw shocked him.

Inside where a few provisions, but they were dried out military rations. That was the most mundane object. Next he found an odd object. At first he didn't know what it was, but holding it in his hand it opened up and its purpose was clear. It was some form of energy weapon; it was the only logical explanation for the shape. Next he found a more conventional pistol, which he quickly put on the ground next to the other objects he had taken out. Next was a large object, one which took up most of the bag. Laying it out on the ground, it was a uniform of some sort. Clearly military, there were three shoulder pads. On the one side, there was a very basic bird-like image and the letters S, H, I, E, L and D. On the other side was a patch with a triangle that was missing part of its bottom side, a circle just above its top and a metallic object behind it. It had the letters S, W, O, R and D underneath. The last patch was above it, a rectangle with a red cross over white, with what appeared to be a red X under it, with a dark blue filling most of the gaps between the red.

Before he could let what he was seeing sink it, the sound from the bag came again. It was clearer this time, like that of static but much quicker. Taking out the final object, it seemed to be some sort of two-way radio.

Uncertain of himself, Peter took it and pushed the button which was probably the one for talking.

"Hello?" There were a few moments of silence before there was a response.

"_Uh, hello?" _The voice sounded old, or at least old in Peter's mind.

"H-who is this?" Peter tried to sound demanding, but failed as his fear started to take over.

"_Who's this? Who the hell are you is more like it. Where's Mary?"_

"Mary? W-what do you want with Mary?" There were a few moments of silence again.

"_Alright kid, tell me where she is and everything is going to be alright."_

"No you listen to me; this is uh… uh…" Peter lost his train of thought as he picked up the pistol. A moment after he had it in his hands the clip fell out.

"Hey Peter I was thinking of something more Tauron and… oh…" Mary paused as she entered the room. Peter had taken the moment to take the alien looking weapon thing and pointed it at her, holding the radio in his other hand.

"Alright Mary, you're going to explain everything to me, right now." Peter's low voice didn't cover the demanding tone.

"Peter I…" Mary tried walking slowly towards him, but he shot a pot close to her with the Zat.

"Don't move, and keep your hands up." Peter's voice was louder than it was before. "Now talk."

"I'm sorry Peter." Was all Mary said.

"Sorry? Sorry?! Sorry about what? About how you lied to me about who you are? About how you're an Earther? About how you lead me on just so you could get what you want?"

"I did…."

"Shut it! I don't want to hear it! No excuses, just tell me what I want to know!"

**Borlial forest**

**Several hundred kilometers away**

"Well that doesn't sound good." Jonathan O'neill stated as he put his walkei-talkie back into its pocket.

"Yeah, it sounds like we blew whatever cover she had." Jeff, one Jonathan's subordinates, commented. The rescue party, made up of SG-14, Jon and Rei, had been beamed down to the planet at a random stop that was close to the core of the population centers but out of the way enough to not be noticed. The ship that had brought them to the planet had only stayed long enough to drop them off and beam up the Avalon 3 to its hanger bay. Now the six man team had twenty four hours to locate Mary before it came by again to beam the seven transponders they had on them. Problem was they only had their equipment, no ship, no transport.

But they did have one trump card. Money.

"Alright so how are we going to get three hundred clicks from here by tomorrow?" Jonathan asked as he showed a hologram of the area around them. "We are here, and we need to get somewhere around here."

"The fastest way would be public transit, there's bound to be something traveling between these cities." Karin, the third member of the team, said. She pointed towards a city that seemed to be a dozen clicks from their location and then to their destination.

"Do we have enough money though?" Michael, the last member of the team, asked. "We don't know how much what command gave us is even worth."

"If it isn't enough then we'll handle that." Jon stated.

"Though Captain Haida is correct, I fail to see why he was necessary for this mission. The colonials know his face and what he is capable of, wouldn't a mission like this require stealth?" Rei asked.

"Usually yes, but command ran under the assumption that the ground pounders here realized what Mary was, so if we needed a distraction the two of you were the best options we could think of." Jonathan explained.

"I see."

"Alright everyone we're burning daylight, let's get a move on." Jonathan ordered.

"Uh, couldn't Rei and I just fly us to the closest city? Much faster than trekking twenty five clicks." Jon asked. A squad of raptors could be herd, flying high over the tree tops.

"That, son, is why that isn't an option." O'neill replied.

"Still, did we have to wear these civi cloths? These things really constrict movement." Jeff complained.

As the group walked through the muddy forest, they spoke amongst themselves about things that where trivial. It was all part of the act, if someone found them they'd pretend to be friends and family on a trip.

"Mister O'neill, I have a question for you." Rei asked Jonathan after a few kilometers.

"Uh, sure, what is it Rei?" Jonathan was honestly put off by the girl. The unnaturally blue hair and red eyes didn't exactly sit well with him. It wasn't her fault her people had been experimented on by the ancients, but in him mind eyes on a face that looked that human should not be red.

"How much of the director's life do you remember?" The question was one that everyone Jonathan knew seemed to ask at some point. He always gave a different answer, but not because he was lying.

"I remember feelings, vague images and flashes. Ever since I was born I've been slowly forgetting, doc says eventually all I'll remember is my own life. It's funny, I remember remembering things from his life, but I don't remember what I was remembering." O'neill explained.

"I see, so the man he became has no bearing on the man you are or will become?" Rei asked.

"Pretty much, why?" As Jonathan asked, he saw Rei looking at Jon with a hint of relief.

"There's someone I know who is in a similar but different situation as you. I don't want to see him become the man the other became." Jonathan chose to not probe the issue. He had enough baggage to deal with leading SG-14 and being a clone of the director, he didn't need the drama of supers on top of that.

**Battlestar Galactica**

**Hanger**

"Gods Frakking dame it!" Chief Tyrol yelled as he kicked pieces of the impossibly refined tylium. A few dozen pieces flew across the deck.

"Chief, you alright?" one of the crewmen asked.

"No, no I'm not alright. I've got a pile of tylium that's been rendered inert that shouldn't even be possible, and I'm trying to put it back together without even knowing what it looks like, or if I even have one, less than one or more than one on my hands."

"Then why'd you tell the old man you could put it back together?"

Tyrol sighed. He took two pieces, one in each hand, and showed it to the crewmen.

"You see these things? I thought it was just broken when I looked at it. It's like a big puzzle; you just need to match the pieces together. Might take some time but you'll figure it out." He then dropped one of the pieces and picked up another one. "But you see THIS ONE? It's warped, clearly bent out of its original shape. Now I'm not even doing this blind, I'm not even using the right parts for putting back whatever the frak this thing is back together."

"Well why don't you tell the old man that? He's reasonable, it's not your fault you can't do the impossible."

"Kid, my reputation is of doing the impossible. You know who fixed a VII's cannon using a broken III's one, a weld and in less than thirty minutes? The Tyrol technique isn't part of the standard training for no reason."

"If that's true, why are you on the Galactica instead of someplace like the Zeus?"

The chief rubbed the back of his neck. "Well let's just say I pissed off the wrong admiral back when I was your age."

"I see." The crewmen laughed. "Well I'm sure commander Adama will be understanding, I mean the thing is broken beyond repair and it's not like it's going…."

There was a blinding light which appeared, consuming the hanger. It lasted only a split second, but it was enough to stop everything and had the alarms go off when it was over.

"To put itself back together." The crewmen stated each word slowly. Whatever the light had been, it had obviously been alien in origin. It was obvious, because nothing natural could have had both the ability to put back the object together, and to do so with the timing.

There was a long silence as the deck crew looked at the objects, a large circular device with symbols on it, and an odd smaller one with buttons which seemed to match.

While they tried to figure out what was happening, Morgan smiled. The action wasn't much, and it required the bending and twisting of many rules, but she had the backing of a pantheon of ancients. It was agreed that on occasions such as this, sufficiently advanced worlds would get a gentle push.

And it wasn't like the push was that big, they just rebuilt a gate and DHD. They didn't wipe out the Aschen, which some had called for. This was as far as the ascended ancients had been able to agree on. But they would be watching. Earth and Cyrannus where too important in things to come for the Aschen to destroy both, but they had free will, so they had to be allowed to make their choices.

Or something. You know, breaking the wall for a minute, I never really understood why the writers didn't just make the ascended be not very powerful instead of being unimaginably powerful and just having the same generic none interference clause that every advanced society that isn't evil seems to have for no real justifiable reason. Where they a parody of the Federation or something? Anyway I digress the Ancients are watching and rebuilt the Abydos gate.

Now back to the story.

**Liberty Station (the former Scorpia Shipyard)**

**Lagrangian 1**

The final haul for the station had been better than expected. The station itself had been taken in one piece, but what had also been taken were the materials for building and maintaining a decent fleet, as well as three fully functional battlestars and six cruisers. The problem was, the materials they had was only compatible with said battlestars and cruisers, with them being useless in building the experimental 305 and 306 due to using different standards for the parts. Pretty much everything was either too big, too small, not flexible enough or some other problem which made them useless for anything other than the stolen ships. Ships they didn't even want because they had no shields, bad armor, far too little firepower and an unacceptably low range and maneuverability.

But the biggest problem was their network. There wasn't enough left of the ships that had initially attacked Earth to learn about it, but the fully functioning station and fleet had shown it clear as day. There was a kill switch in the colonial network. One which was designed to be accessed from the outside.

It was hidden deep in the code, almost impossible for a human to find if they had not been actively looking for it, but Earth had more than humans looking through the systems. It had been an A.I. which had found it, one which was a low level one without sapience. They were based on the knowledge from the Asgard Core, but unlike those of the older races theirs had thoughts which where impossible for them to think, namely of turning on Earth or its people. But just in case the higher level A.I. policed them to keep them in line, and a team of programmers policed the higher level A.I. just in case. It seemed paranoid to some, but the SGC had seen what a rogue A.I. could do.

The networks where removed the moment the problem was discovered. In the case of the ships, they were vented of atmosphere and made off-limits for the time being while the station was run with a decentralized system. It would eventually be brought back online with a fully Earth built one, but for now it would remain in its more manual but safer state.

The question of what to do with the ships had been an open one, but one of the lower ranking officers on the station had come up with an idea. It was crazy, but it had been passed up through the ranks and eventually reached Director O'neill, who then made a request from the council, who then approved the idea.

**Residence of Tom Zarek**

**Sagittaron**

"You're offering me WHAT?" Tom asked, certain he had misheard the offer.

"Three of your 'battlestars' and six of your people's cruisers." The hologram Mitchel repeated. "We have them and they are useless to us. Far to pri… incompatible for our systems."

"Don't patronize me; I know they're primitive compared to what you people have. But think about it from my perspective, you're offering me a navy without a crew to defend a nation which doesn't exist yet." Tom drank some water. He needed something to drink with how dry he was feeling. "This is way too fast an escalation. I'd need at least five thousand trained officers and NCOs for those ships to be properly manned, and even then three battlestars against the colonial fleet? We'd be crushed in an instant."

"Well sit the offer still stands. Remember we want your planet to be independent just as much as you do."

"Because you want an ally or because you want to weaken Caprica?" Tom asked.

"Yes" was the reply Mitchel gave before cutting off the hologram. On the bridge of the Bonaventure, deep in the void between systems, the ship's captain laughed.

"You enjoyed that didn't you?"

"Yes sir I did. I see why everyone who was more advanced than us did it. I think I might do it more often."

**Sietro Residence**

**Picon**

Peter Sietro wasn't a very happy young man. Now he was willing to admit to himself that he was probably more emotionally invested and attached to Mary then he should have been for someone he had known for less than a week, but that didn't help the sense of betrayal. He had a member of the enemy in his house, sleeping in his beds and eating his food.

It had been twelve hours since it had all started, the radio staying silent the whole time. Mary had tried to do something after the first hour, which resulted in him shooting her with the odd weapon. At first he was horrified at what he had done, but he quickly realized that it had only stunned her. Not wasting a moment he tied her arms and legs with some rope from the garage. By the time she came too he had tied her up almost too much to move.

"_I didn't know you where into this type of thing." _She had said, Peter still wondering what that meant. But that was the first glance he had of the real Mary, a girl who liked to make snarky comments. Over the long hours of the night he had learned many other things about her. She had a dirty mind, almost the opposite of the innocent girl she had pretended to be. It was almost whiplash inducing.

Another thing he learned was that she didn't know shame. Maybe. She had offered several different things he had never heard of, some of which she guaranteed didn't require her to be untied. Weather it was a genuine offer or a ploy to escape, he didn't care. He had lost interest in doing something like that with her. Or so that's what he told himself.

The real problem was, apart from remaining awake, was eating. Eating with one hand while he held the odd weapon in the other was easy, but he wasn't cruel enough to let her go hungry. So he had to order take out and feed it like a baby. Thankfully she was more cooperative then his baby cousin had been.

As the hours ticked by he had no idea what he should do. Part of him said he should go to the police; get her out of his hands and to the authorities. But another part of him worried she'd end up dead, or worst, if he did that, and the images he had in his mind squished that idea. But her people had killed so many of his own.

The debate had raged on all night. He knew that eventually he would have to make a choice, and he could only force himself to be awake for so long. He wanted to call his parents, but they were off world and at that moment there was a general communications blackout. Even when it wasn't in effect he had enough trouble contacting them on Scorpia Shipyard, civilian contractors or not.

With the internal debate and the fatigue setting in, he didn't notice the clicks from the radio that had started to happen every few minutes. When he heard a knock at the door, he considered not answering, but he relented when he noticed the next set of knocks where louder, and Mary had fallen asleep.

"Yes what can I do for…" Peter stopped as he saw six people, two about his age and four adults, all of who were pointing weapons at his.

The girl who was around his age, with what he thought was dyed hair and red eyes, pushed him into the house and held him against a wall, the others moving into the different rooms, shouting out 'clear' as they moved from one room to the next.

"Where is she?" The girl asked. The calm in her voice was off putting.

"Upstairs, in the guest room." Peter would have been more scared, but he wasn't alert and before the team had found Mary had let sleep take him over.

"Jesus, what did he do to her?" Jeff asked as he cut off the rope.

"Knowing her, it was probably her idea." Jon stated under his breath. Rei and Michael plopped Peter down on the bed, Michael quickly placing handcuffs on the boy.

"Well, now what?" Jeff asked.

"Now, we wait."

By the time Peter woke up, the team had been long gone, their personnel and equipment on their way to Earth. The only thing which remained was the cuffs on Peter, and the keys for said cuffs on the drawer in the room.

Author's Notes: Yeah, kind of disappointing payoff for the buildup I made before, but I may or may not be able to post for longer than usual due to things in my personal life, so I wanted to get this out there.


End file.
